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Forrest,  David  W 
The  Christ  of  histor 


1856-1918 


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THE   CHRIST   OF    HISTORY 
AND   OF   EXPERIENCE 


FROM   REVIEWS   AND   OPINIONS   OF 
THE   FIRST   EDITION 

The  late  Very  Rev.  Principal  Caird,  D.D.,  LL.D.— "I  have 
been  rending  with  mucii  interest  your  achnirable  Kerr 
Lecture.  It  is  a  fine  and  instructive  piece  of  work,  and  is 
obviously  the  result  of  much  reading  and  thought  on  a 
subject  on  which  it  is  difficult  to  say  anything  new,  and  yet 
on  which,  from  a  comparatively  new  point  of  view,  you  have 
succeeded  in  throwing  fresh  attraction." 

The  Very  Rev.  Principal  Story,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  in  his  Murtle 
Lecture  at  Aberdeen  University.—"  '  It  is  not  by  ideas  but 
by  personalities  that  God  illuminates  and  uplifts  men,'  says 
a  gifted  writer,  whose  recent  book,  '  The  Christ  of  History 
and  of  Experience,'  I  advise  every  thoughtful  student  here 
to  read." 

The  late  Rev.  Professor  Caldf.rwoop,  LL.D.,  in  the  Unitf.d 
Presbyterian  Magazine. — "An  exceedingly  able  treat- 
ment of  a  great  and  important  subject." 

The  Rev.  James  Stalker,  D.D.— "It  is  long  since  I  have  read 
anything  so  luminous  and  stimulating." 

Literature. — "A  book  which  throughout  exhibits  literary  and 
theological  powers  of  a  high  order,  and  which  abounds  in 
observations  and  criticisms  which  could  only  have  been 
penned  by  a  masculine  and  fearless,  but  reverent  thinker." 

TiiKOLOGisciiE  Literaturzeitung. — "  Hier  habcn  wir  cben 
wirklich  lebcndigcs  theologisches  Dcnk(Mi,  das  nach  alien 
Scitcn  die  Augen  often  halt  und  mit  Ik-wusstsein  nirgcnds 
oiw.is  aiidcrcs  suilit,  als  die  Wahrheit." 


THE 

CHRIST    OF    HISTORY 


AND    OF 


EXPERIENCE 


THE  THIRD  SERIES  OF  KERR  LECTURES 


DAVID     W,    FORREST,    D.D. 

SKELMORLIE 


THIRD   EDITION 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS 

EDINBURGH:    T.   &   T.    CLARK 
1901 


First  Edition      .        .         .      October  1S97. 
Second  Edition  .         .         .     January  1899. 
Third  Edition     .        .        .      September  1901. 


The  Rights  of  Translation  ami  of  Reproduction  arc  Resoi'cd. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION. 


During  the  four  years  that  have  elapsed  since  the 
publication  of  this  book,  the  subject  of  which  it  treats 
— the  problem  raised  by  the  union  of  the  Historical 
and  the  Spiritual  in  Christianity — has  come  more  and 
more  into  prominence.  Modern  critical  theories  as  to  the 
Gospel  records  are  forcing  the  question  to  the  front  on 
its  Jiistorical  side ;  and  its  pressing  theological  interest,  as 
attested  by  prevalent  Hegelian  and  Ritschlian  tendencies, 
has  received  a  further  illustration  in  the  rise  of  the  school 
of  Religious  Symbolism  represented  by  the  late  Auguste 
Sabatier.  In  the  discussion  of  this  central  problem  for 
Christian  faith  to-day,  perhaps  some  may  find  the  line 
taken  in  these  Lectures  not  unhelpful. 

It  may  be  affirmed  with  confidence  that  no  theory  will 
long  commend  itself  which  is  not  primarily  founded  on  a 
penetrative  analysis  of  the  self-consciousness  of  Jesus. 

The  view  adopted  in  the  first  Lecture,  that  our  Lord 
abstained  from  uniting  in  prayer  with  His  disciples,  has 
been  strongly  contested  by  the  late  Professor  Bruce.  The 
point  is  a  subordinate  one,  and  its  decision  one  way  or 


vi  Preface  to  I  he  Third  Edition 

the  other  does  not  aficct  the  main  argument  of  the  book. 
Those  who  wish  to  see  the  matter  more  fully  dealt  with 
are  referred  to  the  Appendix  in  this  Edition  (p.  472), 
where  I  have  stated  my  reasons  for  adhering  to  the 
opinion  expressed  in  the  text. 

D.  W.  F. 

Skelmorlie,  Wemyss  Bay, 
September  1901. 


^k. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 


These  Lectures  on  the  relation  between  the  Historical 
and  the  Spiritual  in  Christianity  were  delivered,  on 
the  Kerr  Foundation,  to  the  students  of  the  United 
Presbyterian  College,  Edinburgh,  in  January  and  Feb- 
ruary of  this  year.  They  are  now  published  substan- 
tially in  the  form  in  which  they  were  delivered,  with 
the  inclusion  of  passages  then  omitted  for  want  of 
time.  Some  points  which  did  not  admit  of  more  than 
a  general  reference  in  the  Lectures  will  be  found  more 
fully  discussed  in  the  appended  Notes.  While  I  have 
endeavoured  throughout  the  volume  to  acknowledge 
my  obligations,  I  am  conscious  that  there  is  an  in- 
debtedness both  to  persons  and  to  books,  of  which 
no  adequate  acknowledgment   is  possible. 

My  sincere  thanks  are  due  to  the  Rev.  John 
Hutchison,  D.I).,  Bonnington,  Edinburgh,  and  John 
Hutchison,  Esq.,  LL.D.,  Glasgow,  for  their  kindness  in 
reading  the  proofs ;  and  to  the  Rev.  Professor  Orr,  D.D., 
Edinburgh,  for  valuable  counsel  and  suggestion.  I  have 
also  been  assisted  by  the  Rev.  George  M'Arthur,  M.A., 
in  the  preparation  of  the  Index. 

Glasgow,  October  1897. 


The    Second   Edition,    except    for    a    few   unimportant 
corrections,  does  not  differ  from  the  First. 

D.  W.  F. 

January   1899. 


**  Ego  sum  primus  et  novissiifius,  et  vivus,  et  fui 
mortuus,  et  ecce  sum  vivens  in  saecula 
sacculorumj'^ — Rev.  i.  17,  18. 

**  Fiia  vianifestata  est,  et  vidimus.'''' — i  John  i.  2. 


vill 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE  UNIQUENESS  OF  CHRIST'S  MORAL  SELF- 
CONSCIOUSNESS. 

PAGE 

The  two  elements  in  Christian  Faith  :  Historical  and  Spiritual  .  3 

Their  alleged  incongruity 4 

Purpose  and  plan  of  the  present  Course  of  Lectures     ....  5 

The  dual  character  of  man's  moral  consciousness          ....  7 

The  development  of  the  moral  Ideal  in  Judaism            .         .          .         .  lO 

This  Ideal  accepted,  but  further  enriched,  by  Christ    .         .         .         •  I3 
His  conception  of  God  and  man,  as  Father  and  son,  involved  the  '  infinite 

nature '  of  Duty 

Relation  of  Duty  to  Immortality ^5 

Finality  of  Christ's  moral  Ideal '7 

Christ  devoid  of  an  element  universally  present  in  man's  religious  life : 

His  moral  consciousness  single,  not  dual ^7 

Why  the  testimony  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  on  this  point  is  irresist- 
ible          

Christ's  abstention  from  '  common  prayer ' 

The  positive  implications  of  'sinlessness' :  Christ  unhaunted  by  misgiv- 
ings for  the  *  might-have-been ' ^7 

The  objections  made  to  His  conduct  in  special  instances  :  why  futile    .         31 

Dr.  Martineau's  denial  that  Christ  constitutes  a  separate  moral  type  :  its 

untenableness -^^ 

Natural  evolution  fails  to  account  for  Christ,  alike  in  connection  with 


17 
22 


Contents 


PAGE 


(i)  what    precedes  Ilini,  and  (2)  what  follows  Ilim,      The  latter 
failure  fatal     ...........         35 

Though  a  unique  type,  lie  is  essentially  a  human  type,  of  goodness  : 

bears  the  developing  mark  of  humanity  ......  3S 


LECTURE  II. 


CHRIST S  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTERPRETED 
BY  HIS  CLAIMS. 

Christ's  moral  self-consciousness — the  tundamental  fact        ...         43 
Just  because  unique,  the  interpretation  of  it  must  come  from  Himself — 

1.  His  finality  as  a  Teacher  of  God's  will     .....         45 

2.  His  decisive  pronouncements  on  the  characters  of  individuals  .         47 
What  is  involved  in  His  declaring  to  them  the  forgiveness  of 

their  sins     ..........         48 

3.  Makes  attachment  to  Himself  imperative  ....         52 

4.  Claims  to  be  the  final  Arbiter  of  human  destinies      ...         54 
The  self-assertion  of  Jesus  incompatible  with  normal  human  goodness  : 

His  example  in  this  respect  cannot  be  imitated         •         •         •         •         55 

"  The  Son  of  Man":  its  double  reference  to  service  and  lordship  .  60 

•*TheSon"of  the  Father 66 

His  consciousness  of  Sonship  involves  a  transcendent  element  in  His 

being     ............  68 

Is  not  created  by  His  consciousness  of  Messiahship,  but  underlies  and 

determines  it  ...........  69 

The  Fourth  Gospel  in  substantial  harmony  with  the  Synoptics  on  the 
two  main  points — 

1.  His  relation  to  men         ........         74 

2.  His  relation  to  the  Father       .......         75 

The  Sayings  as  to  His  pre-existencc    .......         76 

The  Johannine  authorship  ........  79 

Difliculty  regarding  the  Discourses,  though  somclimes  exaggerated,  yet 

a  real  one       .........  .So 

The  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  not,  like  Luke,  a  compiler,  but  a  re- 
producer from  his  own  experience  .  .         .         .         .         '^2 


Conlcnts  xi 


PAGE 


Reads  the  beginning  of  Jesus'  ministry  in  the  Hght  of  the  end       .         .         83 
The  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  historical  documents      .         .         86 


LECTURE  III. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST'S  SELF-  CONSCIOUSNESS, 
AND  THE  METHOD  OF  HIS  SELF-MANIFESTATION. 
JESUS  AND  THE  TWELVE 

Importance  of  studying  the  method  and  order  of  the  self-revelation 
of  Jesus         ...........  gi 

I.  The  Growth  of  His  own  Thought — 

1.  As  regards  His  Messiahship  ......  93 

Unlikely  that  His  consciousness  of  it  was  attained  only  at 

His  baptism     .........  94 

2.  As  regards  His  death  ........  99 

Improbability  of  Wendt's  view      .         .  .         .         .         .  99 

We  cannot  say  a  priori  w)\:x.\.  Jesus,  as  the  incarnate  Son,  i/iusl 

have  known    .         .         .         .  .         .         .         .         .  104 

[I.   His  Self- Manifestation  to  men — 

A.  The  Threefold  Means  He  employed    .....  108 

1.  Teaching   .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  loS 

Dealt  first  with  the  basal  conceptions  of  God  and  man 

as  Father  and  son    .......  109 

His  purpose  not  to  impart  ideas,  but  to  mould  character  no 
His  teaching,  therefore,  suggestive  and  germinal,   not 

didactic,  but  more  'authoritative'  on  that  account  112 

2.  Aliracles     .         .  .  .  .  .         .         .         .  114 

That  Jesus  claimed  to  work  them  quite  certain     .         .  114 

Miracles  not  to  be  judged  z'// z'criv/ti  .  .  .  ,  116 
Jesus'  sinlessness  and  the  argument  from  the  uniformity 

of  nature  .         .  .         .  .  .         .  .  117 

The   miracles   as   expressions    of   Ills    cliaractcr   and 

mission  .         .         .         .  .         .  .         .         .  119 

Have  a  place  only  in  a  disorganised  world   ,  .         .  122 

The  miraculous  in  Christianity  more  credible  if  found  in 

the//^>'^zVfl/ as  well  as  the //V^ra/ sphere  .         .         .  125 


xii  Contents 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE    TRANSITION  FROM   THE  HISTORICAL    TO 
THE  SPIRITUAL    CHRIST. 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ :  belongs  to  a  difilerent  category  from  the 
resurrection  of  Lazarus  ........ 


PAGE 


3.    The  InJIuence  0/ His  Personal  Presence        .         .         .  127 

Its  subtle  power  in  shaping  character  .         .         .  12b 

B.  The  existence  of  a   Special   Circle  on  whom    these  three 

factors  in  Ilis  self-manifestation  continuously  operated      .  129 

The  Apostolate  a  necessity  .         .         .         .         .         .  129 

The  Twelve,  a  school ;  but  a  school  in  the  world         .         .  130 
The  Crisis — the  acknowledgment  by  Jesus  of  His  Messiah- 
ship  :  the  effect  on  Ilis  subsequent  intercourse  with  the 

disciples  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  131 

The  potency  of  His  Method  lay  in  its  indirectness        .  .  1 32 


137 


The  Appearances  of  the  Risen  Christ — 

I.  Their  Objectivity 13S 

Failure  of  the  Vision  Hypothesis 139 

Value  of  St.  Paul's  testimony         ......         141 

The  witness  of  the  first  Apostles,  though  referring  to  an 
exceptional  experience  of  their  own,  capable  of  refutation, 
if  untrue  .........         144 

II.  Their   Unique   Character,    as   uniting    tlic    Earthly   and   the 

Spiritual 146 

Weizsackcr  on  the  different  layers  of  tradition         .         .         .         149 
The   two   contradictory   aspects  are   of    the   essence   of  the 
problem  which  the  Appearances  were  meant  to  solve  : — the 
revelation  of  the  sjiiritual  in  a  world  of  sense-perception       .  150 

This  union  of  ()p|)()si(e   attributes   merely   temporary,    for  a 

specific  purpose         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         151 

III.   Why  ihc  .\ppcaranccs  were  vouchsafed  only  to  Believers         .  153 


Contents  xlli 


Their  design  not  the  creation  of  a  new  faith,  but  the  reinstate- 
ment and  transfiguration  of  the  old  one       .         ,         .         .         154 

The  validity  of  the  Resurrection  depended  on  two  correlated 

factors- — the  outward  event  and  the  inward  susceptibility     .          155 

Wholly  different  in  character  from  the  miracles  of  Christ's 

ministry 156 

Its  place  in  Apologetics         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  157 

The  Ritschlian  disparagement  of  the  Resurrection      .         .         .         .  158 

Herrmann's  view  of  the  'inner  life' of  Jesus       .         .         .         .         .  159 

Misreads  the  growth  of  the  Apostolic  faith  ....  161 

The  Risen  life  of  Christ  not  merely  an  inference  from  His  sinless- 
ness,  but  part  of  the  same  objective  divine  manifestation  in 

humanity       ..........  162 

The  self-contradictions  of  Herrmann's  theory      ,         ,         ,         ,  166 


LECTURE  V. 


THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST  AND  HIS  REVELATION 
OF  THE   GODHEAD. 

The  problem  of  Christ's  Person  as  it  presented  itself  to  the  Apostles  .         171 
Their  first  conception   of  Him,    as   the   adequate   organ   of  God's 

working  in  the  r^(2d?w^/z'^'^  sphere  .         .         .         .         .         .  172 

Their  later  view  simply  a  realisation  of  what  this  involved  :  Christ, 

if  central  in  redemption,  must  be  central  in  creation       .         .         .         174 
The  Pauline  doctrine  in  Colossians  :  anticipated  in  Corinthians  .  176 

The  Prologue  to  St.  John's  Gospel :  his  use  of  the  term  Logos     .  1 79 

The  Christology  of  St.   Paul  and  St.  John  makes  the  universe 

intelligible,  by  revealing  its  unifying  principle  .         .         .         181 

All  creation  a  progressive  realisation  without  the  Godhead  of 

the  sonship  which  exists  eternally  zvithin         .         .  .         .  1S3 

Man,   as  a  centre  of  free  spiritual  activity,    expresses  and  re- 
produces the  Son  .         .         .         .         .         ,         .         .          184 

Therefore  the  Son  can  become  persona/ty  Incarnate  in  humanity  1S4 

Was  the  Incarnation  a  necessity  apart  from  Sin  ?        ....  184 
Examination  of  the  arguments  for  the  affirmative  view         ,         .  1S5 
The  Incarnation  morally  more  credible,  if  undergone  for  redemp- 
tive ends 190 


xiv  Contents 

pagf: 
It  makes  a  great  ditTerence  whether  we  measure  our  guilt  by 

Christ's  SufTering  alone,  or  also  by  the  Incarnation  .         .  191 

In  what  light  the  Christological  decisions  of  the  Church  Councils  arc 

to  be  understood  .........  193 

Defect  of  the  Chalccdon  r"oruuila       .         .         .  .  194 

The  Kcnotic  Theory  as  stated  by  Godcl 195 

(1)  How  far  it  lielps  to  construe  the  consciousness  of  the  incarnate 

Son 197 

(2)  Is  it  conipalilile  with  the  rcvclalion  of  the  Godhead  ^wnw  in 

Him? 200 

The  service  rendered  by  Kcnotic  Christology     .....  203 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit :  how  it  arose  .....  205 
In  the  Pauline  Epi.stles  and  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  Spirit  is 

the  <7//<?r  ^^£»  of  Christ  :  yet  only  within  limits           .         .          .  206 
Knowledge  of  His  personality  only  reached  through  the  person- 
ality of  the  Son      .........  207 

The  Trinity  :  a  Christian,  not  a  Jewish,  conception  .         .         .  20S 

In  what  sense  there  are  adumbrations  of  it  in  the  Old  Testament  20S 

The  Speculative  renderings  of  it         .         .         .         .         .         .  209 

The  Trinity  essentially  a  >5zV/i?;7Va/ revelation      .         ,        .         ,  210 


LECTURE  VI. 

'JlIE   OnjECriVE  ELEMENT  JN  THE   REDEMPTIVE 
WORK  OF  CHRIST, 

I.   The    two   aspects.   Objective  and   Subjective,  of  the  Work  of 

Christ:  danger  of  isolating  them  .....         21 

Their  correspondence  to  the  two  inseparable  Needs  of  the 
soul        .......... 

Does  God's  condemnation  of  sin  imply  an  actual  alienation 

on  His  |)art,  or  only  a  severance  on  ours?       .         .         .         221 
Why   the    New    Testament    speaks   of  a   'propitiation   for 

sins' ;  never  of  a  jjropitiation  oflered  to  God  .         .  22.J 

Misleading  analogies  drawn  from  human  rectmcilialion        .         225 


219 


Contents  xv 


II,  The  Apostles  regarded  the  Death  of  Christ  as  the  Ground  of 

Forgiveness  .........         228 

Was  this  due  to  an  illusion  caused  by  their  Jewish  training  and 

their  specific  experience  ?       .......         229 

That  it  was  not,  is  shown  by — 

(i)  The  manner  and  character  of  Christ's  own  references  to 

His  death 232 

(2)  The  effect  which  its  anticipation  had  upon  Him    .         .         233 

{3)  The  significance  of  the  Last  Supper      ....         236 

Christ's  consciousness,  both  individual  and  representative  .         238 


HI.   His  Death  the  Ground  of  Forgiveness  only  as  related  to — 

(i)  His  earthly  life    ........         240 

(2)  His  risen  life        .  .         .         .         .         .  .         .         241 

The  order  of  St.  Paul's  exposition  in  Romans  :  Justification  and 

the  New  Life        .........         243 

The  need  of  appropriation  on  our  part  shows  that  the  Sacrifice 
of  Christ  is  not  a  '  quantitative  equivalent '    .         .  .         .  246 

Dr.  Dale's  view  that  there  may  be  saving  faith  in  Christ  without 

conscious  recognition  of  His  Death  as  a  propitiation  for  sins  .         249 
What  is  involved  in  this   .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         2^1 


LECTURE    VII. 

THE  NEW  LIFE  IN  CHRIST  AND  THE  CONDITIONS 
OF  ITS  REALISATION. 

The  righteousness  of  the  Law  and  the  righteousness  of  God        .  255 

The  relation  of  the  Law  of  God  to  His  Life   .             ...  257 

St.  Paul's  philosophy  of  history  :  its  Three  Stages  .  .  .  25S 
Faith  the  one  condition  of  spiritual  life  for  man,  whether  fallen 

or  unfallen    ..........  265 

Only,  it  operates  differently  in  the  two  cases       ....  265 

The  relation  of  the  New  Life  to  man's  natural  character    .         .  266 

Did  St.  Paul  hold  that  it  ought  to  be  complete  from  the  first  ?  .  267 
The  truth  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  not  dependent  on  its  historical 

setting           ..........  271 

Its  essential  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  Christ       .         .         .  273 


XVI 


Contents 


II.   The  Church  as  the  Home  of  the  New  Life — 

( 1 )  As  the  Bearer  of  the  historic  Message    .... 

(2)  As  its  Interpreter  to  the  individual         .... 
The   Communion  of  the  Church  regarded  by  the  Apostles  as 

indispensable  for  Christians  ....... 

Their  view  of  Baptism      ........ 

The  New  Testament  conception  of  the  Church  — 

(i)  Does  not  distinguish  between  the  Church  Visible  and 
the  Church  Invisible,  but  between  the  Church  in 
progress  and  the  Church  made  perfect 

(2)  Absence  of  Sacerdotalism     ...... 

(3)  No  form  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity  prescribed  as  necessary 


278 
278 

280 
281 


282 

284 
286 


III.   Humanity  as  the  ^//^;r  of  its  realisation    .         .         .         .         . 
The  New  Life  not  meant  to  suppress  tlie  natural  qualities  of 

man  :  depends  on  them  for  its  content  . 
The  error  of  the  Monastic  and  Puritan  ideals 
Due  in  part  to  a  false  conception  of  Christ's  Example 
Adaptive  and  absorptive  power  of  Christianity  . 
Only  slowly  realised  by  the  Church  .... 


288 

288 
289 

293 
296 
297 


LECTURE   VIII. 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   TO   THE 
HISTORICAL  IN  CHRISTIAN  FAITH. 

I.  The  Neo-Hegelian  rendering  of  Christianity 

Jesus  as  the  Embodiment  of  the  idea  of  a  divine  humanity 
Neo-IIegelianism  and  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
Its  idealisation  of  Christ's  Death  and  Resurrection 
Christianity  not  an  Idealism,  but  an  Achievement 


301 

305 
306 

307 
310 


II.   Objection  to  the  union  of  the  Historical  with  the  Spiritual  in 

Christian  Faith      .         .         .         .         .  .         .         .         .         311 

Its  invalidity  : — 

(i)  Historical  belief,  a  constant  factor  in  determining  all  our 

ideas  of  duty 312 

(2)  Historical  belief  pre-eminently  necessary  in  the  reli^otts 

sphere 313 


•.V 


Contents  xvli 


LECTURE   IX. 


PAGE 


(3)  The  Historical  element  in  Christianity  capable  of  excep 

tional  verification :  reason  of  this       .         .         .         .  -^14 

The  Gospels,  the  link  between  the  historic  Jesus  and 

the  Church's  interpretation  of  Him    .         .         .         .  -^ir 

Subjective  aflinity,  the  condition  of  insight  into  characters 

or  moral  forces  ...  -.tK 

The  objection  that  the  correspondence  of  the  Incarnation 

with   human  needs  casts  suspicion  on   its  historical 

reality :  a  mere  paradox  .  .  .  ,  .  .  -^20 
Were   no   purpose   discernible   in  the  Incarnation,   no 

testimony  could  make  it  credible        .         .         .         .  '•21 

The  mediation  of  the  Church  necessary  for  the  individual ; 

yet  in  a  sense  transcended  by  him      .  .         ,         321 

The  hypothesis  that  faith  in  Christ  could  have  survived  the  loss 

of  the  Evangelical  Records  :  why  untenable  ....  323 
St.  Paul's  supposed  disregard  of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  .  .  325 
The  early  Churches,  whether  Petrine  or  Pauline,  not  destitute  of 

the  means  of  historic  verification   ......         -127 

The   return    to   the   historical  Christ  is  a  return  to  a  supreme 

Personality,  of  which  Teaching  was  but  one  manifestation       .         331 

St.  Paul  not  the  rival  of  Jesus  as  a  teacher,  but  an  interpreter  of 

His  complete  self-revelation    .  .         .         .         .  .         .         3 -.2 

The  Gospels,  the  guarantee  against  the  stereotyping  of  partial 

conceptions  of  Christ's  purpose  and  work       ....         334 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  FINAL  JUDGMENT— IS  FAITH 
IN  CHRIST  NECESSARILY  CONSCIOUS? 

The  problem  raised  by   the  existence  of  a  high  type  of  character 

in  many  who  reject  the  Historic  Faith 330 

I.  We  are  not  entirely  left  to  a  speculative  treatment  of  the  question         341 
Christ's   Parable,    Matthew  xxv.   31-46:    the  Judgment  of  the 

Heathen        ••........  342 


66 


xviii  Contents 

PAGE 

If  receptive  to  the  quickening  of  the  Son  in  the  sphere  of  duty, 

they  are  made  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  His  redeeming  life  343 

Love  as  unconscious  Faith         .....••         344 

II.  Is  this  principle  capable  ofapplicationw/V^/w  the  Christian  world?  345 

DilTerent  moral  connotations  of  the  phrase,  '  Rejection  of  Christ '  346 

What  Faith  is  in  its  essence 353 

The  New  Birth  and  the  influence  of  Environment      .         .         .  355 
Social  and  intellectual  conditions  of  belief  in  the  Apostolic  age 

difitTcnt  from  ours 35^ 

The  morally  irresolute  both  without  and  within  the  Church        .  365 
The  deg)ce  of  receptivity  to  the  Spirit  of  Christ  which  is  needed 

to  give  a  determinate  cast  to  character :  not  measurable  by  us 
The  redemptive  power  of  Christ  not  confined  to  the  sphere  in 

which  the  ordinar)'  means  of  grace  operate     ....  367 

This  admission  no  disparagement  of  the  Historic  Faith       .         .  370 

III.  The  doctrine  of  an  Intermediate  State 37i 

(i)  2\s  Q.  Probation  374 

If  for   some  only,   perplexes   rather   than  lightens  the 
problem  of  destiny    .......         374 

(2)  As  a  Training  and  Purification   .....  376 

The  difierence   between  this  doctrine   and  thai  of  the 
immediate  entrance  of  the  soul  at  death  into  the  glory 
of  God  :  not  so  great  as  often  supposed     .         .         .         377 
Neither  of  them  corresponds  with  Christ's  Parable         .         378 
Scripture  leaves  the  period  between  Death  and  the  Judgment  in 

shadow         ..........         37S 

IMaces  the  emphasis  of  moral  decision  witliin  the  present  life : 

what  this  implies 379 

Conclusion 379 


NOTES    TO   THE   LECTURES, 


LECTURE  I. 


Note  1.  The  Greek  and  Christian  Ideals  of  Conduct 

,,  2.  The  Co7iseqtie7ice  of  divorcing  Ditty  fro?n  Immortality 

5,  3.  The  Prayers  of  Christ      ...... 

,  4.  The  ^  Morbidity^  of  Self -exainination 

,,  5.  Christ  and  Evolution        ...... 


381 
383 
385 
386 
-.88 


LECTURE  IL 

6.  Dean  Stanley  on  Chr-ist^s  Self  suppression  , 

7.  The  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel        .... 

8.  Harnack  oji  the  Prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel   . 

9.  The  Baptisfs  Designatiori  of  Jesus  as  "  The  Lamb  of  God^' 

10.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  in  the  Synoptics  and  in  St.  John    . 

LECTURE  IIL 

11.  The  Attestation  of  Sonship  at  the  Baptism  a7id  the  Trans 

figU7'ation    ........ 

12.  The  ti'tie  Glory  of  Chris fs  earthly  Life 

13.  The  Limitations  of  our  Lord' s  Knowledge 

14.  The  Duration  of  Chj'isfs  Intercourse  with  the  Twelve 

15.  Christ'' s  Selft-estraint  in  His  Miracles 

16.  Miracle  and  Natural  Revelation        .... 

17.  Miracle  as  beloiiging  to  a  disorganised  World    . 

18.  The  false  View  of  Miracle         ..... 

19.  Dr.  Martineau  071  Peter's  Confession  of  Jesus''  Messiahship 

LECTURE  IV. 

20.  Chrisfs  Restirrectio7i  as  a  'P7'ocess '  .... 

21.  The  Ascensio7i  a7ui  the  Forty  Days   .         .         ,         ,         . 


391 
392 
392 
393 
395 


397 
398 
398 
401 
404 

405 
406 
40S 
409 


411 
412 


XX  Contents 


PAGE 


Note  22.   Ilaniack  and  Martiman  on  the  Significance  of  the  Christ o- 

phanics  for  subsequent  Ages 4M 

,,      23.  Herrmann'' s  Conception  of  the  Exalted  Christ    .  .         415 

lecturp:  v. 

,,      24.    The  Universal isnt  of  Christ 416 

,,      25.    The  apparent  Antagonism  between  Nature  and  the  Moral 

Life— Sin  and  Death 422 

2C.   Ilunian  Sonship  grounded  in    the  Filial  Love  which    is 

eternally  in  Cod         .         .         .         .          .          .          .  432 

,,  27.  On  the  expression  ^GocCs  Plan  of  the  World'  .  .  .  433 
,      2S.    The  Christological Fommhv  of  the  Church  Councils  negative 

rather  than  positive    .......  435 

,,      20.    The  Personality  of  God 436 

LECTURE  VI. 

,,  30.  The  iftdefinable  Element  in  Christ'' s  Sufiering  .  .  .  439 
,,      31.    ^Justitia  imputata' and  '  fustitia  infusa'  .  .         .         440 

LECTURE  VIL 

.,  32.  St.  PauPs  Conception  of  the  Law       .....  444 

,,  33.  Evolution  and  the  L'^all     .......  450 

,,  34.  The  XaplfffMara  in  St,  L\2ufs  Epistles:  Functions,  not  Offices  459 

,,  35.  Unconscious  Actions  as  the  Sustaining  Power  of  luiith       .  460 

LECTURE  VIIL 

, ,      36.    The  historical  Jesus  as  the  Symbol  or  Example  of  the  Divine 

IJfe  in  Man      ........  461 

. ,      37.  Fact  and  Ideal         ........  463 

3S.    The  Verification  of  a  historical  Revelation  .         .         .  46S 

LECTURE  LX. 

,,      39.    Unconscious  Faith    ........         46S 

10.    Contrast  of  Christian  Society  as  it  now  is,  with  the  L.ife  of 

the  Nerv  Testament    .......         469 

Ari'KNl^lX.   Did  Jesus  Pray  with  His  Disciples?   ....         472 
4^^3 


Inhkx 


LECTURE    I. 

THE    UNIQUENESS    OF    CHRIST'S    MORAL 
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


SYNOPSIS. 

The  two  elements  in  Christian  Faith  :  historical  and  spiritual. 

Their  alleged  incongruity. 

Purpose  and  plan  of  the  present  Course  of  Lectures. 

Dual  character  of  the  moral  consciousness. 

Development  of  the  moral  Ideal  in  Judaism. 

This  Ideal  accepted,  but  further  enriched,  by  Christ. 

His  conception  of  God  and  man,  as  Father  and  son,  involved  the  *  infinite 

nature '  of  Duty, 
Relation  of  Duty  to  Immortality. 
Finality  of  Christ's  moral  Ideal. 

Christ  devoid  of  an  element  universally  present  in  man's  religious  life :  His 

moral  consciousness  single,  not  dual. 
Why  the  testimony  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  on  this  point  is  irresistible. 
Christ's  abstention  from  *'  common  prayer." 
The  positive  implications  of  *  sinlessness ' :   Christ  unhaunted  by  misgivings 

for  the  *  might-have-been.' 
The  objections  made  to  His  conduct  in  special  instances  :  why  futile. 

Dr.    Martineau's  denial  that  Christ  constitutes  a  separate  moral   type  :    its 

untenablencss. 
Natural  evolution  fails  to  account  for  Christ  alike  in  connection  with  (i)  what 

precedes  Him,  and  (2)  what  follows  Him.     The  latter  failure  fixtal. 

Though  a  unique  type,  He  is  essentially  a  human  type,  of  goodness:  bears 
liic  developing  mark  of  humanity. 


LECTURE    I. 

The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  Moral 
Self-Consciousness. 

It  is  a  distinctive  mark  of  the  Christian  religion  that 
it  blends  together  inseparably  the  historical  and  the 
spiritual.  It  claims  to  be  based  on  a  supreme  historic 
Personality,  who  not  only  proclaimed  the  highest  truths 
of  God's  holiness  and  love,  but  who  realised  in  His  own 
character  all  that  God  demands  of  man  as  His  child,  and 
thus  broke  the  sad  immemorial  traditions  of  human  sin, 
and  offered  up  in  suffering  and  in  death  a  stainless  life, 
which  God  crowned  by  a  triumphant  resurrection.  It 
claims,  moreover,  that  He  who  manifested  this  character 
took  up  such  a  position  relatively  to  other  men,  and  so 
emphasised  the  importance  of  His  own  personality,  as 
could  only  be  justified  on  the  assumption  that  He  was 
God  manifest  in  flesh,  and  that  His  human  life  was  but 
the  means  whereby  He  took  the  manhood  into  God,  and 
so  became  the  beginning  of  a  new  spiritual  experience 
in  humanity.  But  the  bare  acceptance  of  these  truths 
does  not  constitute  faith.  The  belief  that  Jesus  lived, 
died,  and  rose,  or  that  He  came  into  the  world  to  achieve 
the  blessing  of  man's  deliverance,  is  one  thing ;  belief  m 
Him  is  another,  and  implies  the  formation  of  a  fellowship 
in  which  Christ  is  to  us  as  individuals  all  that  God  can  be. 


4  The  Uniqtieness  of  Ckrisfs  [Lect. 

Clearly  such  a  faith,  which  is  a  spiritual  act,  has  its 
roots  in  history,  and  that  in  two  ways.  First,  our  con- 
ception of  what  Christ  is  as  the  indwelling  life  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  individual  soul,  derives  its  content 
from  His  earthly  character  and  work.  Secondly,  He 
Himself  possesses  His  present  power  to  deliver  and 
renew  us  only  because  He  was  once  a  sharer  in  the 
m.oral  struggle  of  our  race,  and  came  forth  from  it 
victorious.  It  was  by  virtue  of  His  own  human  triumph 
that  He  acquired,  as  the  Lord  of  humanity,  the  capacity 
and  the  right  to  be  the  guarantee  of  ours.  Hence, 
while  Christianity  professes  to  be  adapted  to  all  times 
and  conditions  as  an  immediate  reality  in  experience,  it 
is  yet  anchored  to  one  particular  epoch  and  to  a  special 
personality  in  the  past.  For  this  reason  it  seems  to 
some  to  consist  of  two  incompatible  parts  joined  to- 
gether with  untempered  mortar.  On  the  one  hand,  they 
say,  it  does  justice  to  the  religious  instinct  which  tells 
us  that  faith  means  an  immediate  communion  of  the 
soul  with  God  ;  and,  on  the  other,  it  perverts  the  nature 
of  this  communion  by  making  it  include  a  certain  in- 
tellectual attitude  to  a  historical  event.  It  therefore 
unwarrantably  seeks  to  shut  out  from  this  true  fellowship 
with  God,  which  is  the  deepest  necessity  of  the  heart, 
all  who,  in  the  difficult  sphere  of  historical  investigation, 
arrive  at  conclusions  which  it  disapproves.  By  this 
binding  together  of  spiritual  experience  with  matters  of 
opinion  whose  right  determination  involves  profound 
philosophical  problems  and  the  delicate  weighing  of 
testimony,  a  twofold  evil  results.  Many  scientific  and 
cultured  minds  are  regarded  as  irreligious  merely  because 
they  will  not  be  guilty  of  intellectual  dishonesty;   while 


I.]  Moral  Self -Consciousness  5 

the  untrained  masses  are  called  upon  in  the  name  of 
faith  to  give  adhesion  to  asserted  facts  which  they  have 
no  capacity  of  verifying.^ 

Now  Christianity  took  its  rise,  not  in  an  abstract 
conception  of  what  ought  to  be,  but  in  the  recognition 
of  what  had  been.  The  faith  in  a  living  Christ,  in 
whom  alone  the  power  of  our  sonship  to  God  is  restored, 
was  not  the  product  of  an  idealising  imagination,  but 
the  conviction  to  which  men  felt  themselves  impelled  by 
the  facts  of  Christ's  earthly  life,  and  the  spiritual  experi- 
ences which  it  awaked  in  them.  My  purpose  in  these 
lectures  is  to  discuss  the  relations  between  the  historical 
and  spiritual  in  Christianity  with  special  reference  to 
their  alleged  incongruity.  The  argument  is  necessarily 
a  gradual  and  cumulative  one.  In  the  present  lecture 
I  shall  try  to  show  that  the  moral  self-consciousness  of 
Jesus  was  incontestably  of  such  a  character  as  makes  it 
impossible  to  account  for  Him  by  any  theory  of  normal 
development,  and  in  the  next  that  His  self-conscious- 
ness, as  interpreted  by  the  claims  He  made,  implies  His 
eternal  or  transcendent  Sonship.  In  the  third  lecture  I 
shall  deal  with  the  growth  of  this  self-consciousness,  and 
then  with  the  method  which  He  adopted  in  His  self- 
manifestation  to  men  as  the  incarnate  Son.  Under  the 
latter  head  I  hope  to  show  that  Teaching  formed  but  one 
of  the  media  in  this   manifestation,  and  that  the  selection 

^  "  It  is  by  no  means,"  says  Professor  T.  H.  Green,  "  a  piece  of  mere  intel- 
lectual wantonness  to  disturb  the  faithful  in  that  theory  of  their  faith  which 
they  have  come  to  think  inseparable  from  faith  itself,  to  inquire  whether  faith, 
as  a  spiritual  state,  is  necessarily  dependent  on  assent  to  those  propositions  con- 
cerning ostensible  matters  of  fact  which  form  the  basis  of  theological  dogma. 
Such  inquiry  is  necessary  for  the  vindication  of  faith  itself,  and  even  for  its 
presentation  in  its  properly  scriptural  character."  —  Miscellaneous  Works, 
p.  266. 


6  The  Uniqueness  of  Chrisfs  [Lect. 

of  a  special  circle  of  associates,  like  the  twelve  disciples, 
was  necessary  for  the  reception  or  recognition  of  such 
a  revelation  of  personality.  The  fourth  lecture  will  treat 
of  the  Resurrection  as  the  transition  point  from  the 
historical  to  the  spiritual.  I  shall  there  discuss  the 
question  of  the  Christophanies,  and  endeavour  to  prove 
that  they  present  just  those  characteristics  which  were 
required  to  verify  to  the  disciples,  not  only  the  persistency 
and  continuity  of  Christ's  life  after  death,  but  its  trans- 
formation, the  entrance  of  His  total  personality  into  a 
higher  and  permanent  mode  of  existence.  The  fifth 
lecture  will  deal  with  the  view  of  Christ's  person  and  of 
the  Godhead  to  which  His  earthly  life  as  interpreted  by 
the  Resurrection  and  by  Christian  experience  inevitably 
leads.  In  this  connection  I  shall  treat  of  the  Christ- 
ology  of  the  apostles,  and  of  the  true  nature,  as  it  appears 
to  me,  of  the  decisions  of  the  great  Church  Councils, 
and  the  degree  in  which  modern  Kenotic  theories  tend 
to  modify  or  elucidate  them.  The  sixth  lecture  will  be 
a  discussion  of  the  Objective  element  in  the  work  of 
Christ  relative  to  human  redemption,  and  specially  of  its 
relation  to  the  receptivity  of  the  individual  soul.  In 
the  seventh  I  shall  speak  of  the  new  life  of  sonship 
which  Christ  mediates,  of  the  Church  as  the  home  in 
which  it  is  fostered,  and  of  Humanity  as  the  total  sphere 
in  whicli  alone  it  realises  itself.  In  the  eighth  lecture 
I  shall  endeavour  to  show  that  the  union  of  the  historical 
with  the  spiritual  in  the  Christian  Faith  does  not  make 
of  it  an  incongruous  amalgam,  that  the  same  union  per- 
vades the  entire  moral  life  of  man,  and  that  the  historical 
clement  in  Christianity  is  of  such  a  nature  as  renders 
it  capable  of  exceptional   verification.      The  final   lecture 


I.]  Moral  Self-Coitsciotisness  7 

will  deal  with  the  problem,  how  far  the  view  of  Christi- 
anity which  I  have  presented  is  reconcilable  with  the 
undoubted  fact  that  a  moral  character  of  peculiar 
excellence  and  attractiveness  is  often  possessed  by  those 
who  reject  the  historic  faith  of  the  Church.  Or,  to  put 
the  matter  briefly,  Is  faith  in  Christ  necessarily  conscious  ? 

I  start,  then,  with  the  moral  self-consciousness  of 
Jesus  as  constituting  a  unique  type  of  human  personality. 

When  we  begin  our  resolves  foi'  a  better  life  our 
idea  of  the  aim  to  be  reached  is  usually  comparatively 
simple.  We  are  conscious  of  some  glaring  faults  in 
certain  departments  of  our  conduct,  such  as  physical 
self-indulgence,  or  hastiness  of  temper,  or  inconsiderate- 
ness  towards  others.  We  set  ourselves  to  amend  these ; 
and  just  in  proportion  as  we  succeed,  new  lines  of  duty 
and  self-denial  unfold  themselves.  Quite  possibly  we 
may  disregard  them,  and  make  no  effort  to  remove  the 
further  defects  that  have  been  disclosed  to  us ;  but  that 
is  not  because  we  have  achieved  our  end  and  remain 
placidly  content  with  the  result,  but  because  we  are  weary 
of  the  continual  struggle.  We  may  refuse  to  respond  to 
the  fresh  claims  made  upon  us,  but  none  the  less  we 
know  they  exist ;  and  by  impatiently  turning  away  from 
them  we  surrender  the  possibility  of  moral  progress.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  acknowledge  their  authority,  and 
address  ourselves  to  meet  them,  they  but  prove  to  mark 
another  stage  in  an  endless  journey.  Nay,  more  than 
that ;  for  advance  in  the  moral  life  is  not  properly 
represented  by  a  direct  ascent  towards  some  final  height, 
where  the  lower  points  are  wholly  overpassed.  There  is 
in  it,  not  only  a  heightening,  but  a  deepening  and  widen- 
ing, of  the  entire  conception  of  duty.      As  one  phase  or 


8  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lect. 

capacity  of  our  being  leads  to  another,  so  it  is  in  turn 
reacted  upon ;  and  the  successes  that  we  gain  in  any 
part  of  our  character  are  not  final,  relieving  us  of  all 
struggle  or  concern  regarding  it.  The  real  goal  which 
is  set  before  us,  and  the  attainment  of  which  alone 
satisfies,  is  not  any  single  supreme  point,  but  the  com- 
plete harmony  of  an  infinitely  complex  nature.  The 
richer  a  man's  spiritual  life  becomes,  the  clearer  is  his 
conception  of  this  complexity,  of  the  numberless  factors 
whose   ricrht    relation    to   each   other   constitutes    human 

o 

goodness.  Hence  it  is  that  his  self-consciousness  bears 
a  dual  witness.  At  the  same  moment  that  it  encourages 
him  by  the  assurance  of  his  progress  and  growth  in 
moral  power,  it  alarms  and  depresses  him  by  testifying 
to  the  widening  of  the  gulf  that  separates  him  from 
his  ideal.  The  same  experience  that  declares  his  in- 
creasing unity  with  God  emphasises  his  divergence 
from   Him. 

Sometimes  this  strange  and  abiding  antinomy  in 
human  character  is  described  as  if  it  implied  that  the 
better  one  is,  the  worse  he  feels  himself  to  be.  But 
that  is  not  quite  the  case.  The  saint  who  has,  through 
the  efforts  of  long  years,  attained  a  conspicuous  strength 
and  nobleness,  knows  very  well  that  he  is  better  than 
before ;  that  he  has  rid  himself  of  obstructions  and 
weaknesses  that  hampered  his  being  and  obscured  his 
vision.  He  feels  that  he  has  been  moving  forward  and 
upward  ;  he  is  under  no  delusion  of  retrogression  ;  but 
he  is  more  overwhelmed  than  of  old  by  the  distance  that 
stretches  between  him  and  the  end  of  his  endeavour, 
not  because  the  distance  is  greater,  but  because  formerly 
he   did    not    realise  how  great   it  was.      The   increase   of 


^•^ 


I.]  Mo7^al  Self-Co7iscio2tsness  g 

moral  power  which  he  has  gained  by  resistance  to  one 
form  of  evil  is,  as  it  were,  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  increased  sense  of  obligation  which  that  moral 
power  has  given  him.  The  conflict  deepens  and 
broadens,  and  seems  to  lose  itself  in  an  almost  inextric- 
able confusion.  It  is  this  fact  which  accounts  for  the 
unspeakable  self-abasement  of  devout  souls.  There  is 
nothing  unreal  in  their  cry  of  self-loathing  when  they 
confess  themselves  the  chief  of  sinners.  That  confession, 
notwithstanding  its  form,  does  not  involve  a  comparison 
of  their  own  condition  before  God  with  that  of  others, — 
a  comparison  for  which,  as  they  would  be  the  first  to 
admit,  they  have  not,  and  cannot  have,  the  requisite 
knowledge.  It  is  not  a  phrase  to  be  interpreted  by  the 
rules  of  logic ;  it  is  the  language  of  a  heart  so  keenly 
alive  to  the  incalculable  claims  that  remain  to  be  ful- 
filled, that  it  can  only  prostrate  itself  before  the  Holiest. 
Such  a  one  may  have  reached  heights  which  previously 
he  never  hoped  to  scale, — which  then,  indeed,  he  could  not 
even  descry, — but  the  sense  of  achievement  which  this 
experience  has  brought  is  almost  overborne  and  swallowed 
up  by  his  new  consciousness  of  the  altitudes  that  tower 
above  him.  The  problem  is  further  from  solution  than 
ever,  because  it  is  not  the  same  problem  to  which  he 
addressed  himself  at  the  first.  It  has  opened  out  into 
far-reaching  meanings,  the  very  terms  of  which  he  can 
hardly  comprehend.  The  more  he  succeeds  in  acquiring 
self-denial,  generosity,  purity  of  heart,  the  more  utterly 
hopeless  does  the  quest  appear  to  him. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  description  of  the  dual 
witness  of  our  moral  consciousness  does  not  apply  to 
humanity  universally  ;  that  Aristotle,  for  example,  in  his 


lo  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ' s  [Lect. 

•'  Ethics,"  sets  forth  the  high-minded  man^  as  the  loftiest 
type  of  character;  and  the  high-minded  man  is  he  who, 
possessing  a  rare  degree  of  merit,  values  himself  as  he 
deserves.  But  everything  depends  on  the  standard 
by  which  men  try  themselves.  A  proud  self-content,  as 
in  Pharisaism,  is  perfectly  natural  to  those  for  whom 
the  religious  life  consists  of  a  definite  round  of  ritual 
observances.  If  we  believe  that  duty  can  be  thus 
summed  up,  the  fulfilment  of  it  becomes  a  very  prac- 
ticable thing.  If,  again,  we  travel  beyond  this  travesty 
of  religion  to  the  experience  of  those  who,  like  the 
Greeks,  had  some  true  conception  of  moral  obligations 
to  others,  yet  for  whom  these  obligations  were  still 
limited  and  calculable,  then  though  there  may  remain 
elements  of  self-dissatisfaction  in  a  good  man's  view  of 
his  conduct,  he  will  not  be  increasingly  overwhelmed  by 
the  thought  of  an  impossible  task.  The  Greek  idea  of 
virtue  was  essentially  aesthetic.  It  demanded,  above 
all,  balance  and  proportion  in  the  character.  Human 
qualities  were  for  it  measurable  things,  like  the  parts  of 
a  work  of  art,  and  forming  together  in  their  mutual 
relation  a  complete  and  compact  whole.  We  feel  at 
once  how  inadequate  such  a  view  is.  It  is  not  merely 
that  we  differ  from  it,  but  we  cannot  by  any  stretch  of 
imagination  conceive  of  ourselves  as  holding  it.  It  is  an 
outworn  conception  of  the  ideal  of  conduct,  to  which 
there  was  no  possible  return  when  once  the  vision  of  the 
Infinite  Holiness  dawned  upon  humanity.  "  We  needs 
must  love  the  highest  when  we  sec  it." " 

The  Jewish   race  was   the  means  of  revealing  to  the 

*  /iCYaXo'^uxos,  Eth.  Niconi.  4.  3,  3  sq. 

'  See  Note  1,  p.  381,  "  The  Greek  and  Christian  Ideals  of  Conduct." 


•.V 


i.j  Moral  Self-Consciousness  1 1 

world  the  absoluteness  and  endlessness  of  human  obliga- 
tion. The  revelation  was  a  gradual  process ;  but  the 
root-idea  from  which  the  perfect  flower  grew  is  already 
expressed  by  the  great  prophets  of  the  eighth  century. 
Their  protests  against  a  ceremonial  worship  ;  their  de- 
claration that  God  demanded  mercy  rather  than  sacrifice ; 
that,  as  the  Holy  One,  He  could  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
but  a  spiritual  worship  and  an  ethical  service, — implied 
an  infinite  element  in  the  relation  which  the  soul  sus- 
tained towards  Him.  "  Woe  is  me,"  cries  Isaiah, 
smitten  with  the  vision  of  the  intolerable  brightness, 
"  for  I  am  undone ;  because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips : 
for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  Hosts." ^ 
This  consciousness  of  unspeakable  guilt  before  the  In- 
finite was  only  possible  to  one  who  had  at  least  the  dim 
consciousness  of  an  infinite  nature  within  himself  to 
which  he  had  not  been  loyal. 

But  though  the  sense  of  an  immeasurable  responsi- 
bility is  present  in  Hosea  and  Isaiah,  it  is  not  so  much 
that  of  the  individual  as  of  the  member  of  a  sacred  com- 
munity.^ They  lived  in  the  marvellous  historic  life  of 
the  chosen  race,  and  almost  merged  themselves  in  it. 
Their  duty  consisted  in  remaining  true  to  the  heritage 
of  their  fathers,  and  transmitting  it  undimmed  to  their 
children,  that  the  generation  to  come  might  praise  the 
Lord.  While,  therefore,  they  held  that  Jehovah  was  no 
sectional  deity,  but  the   God  of  the  whole  earth,  yet  in 

^  Isa.  vi.  5' 

^Speaking  of  Hosea,  Prof.  Kirkpatrick  says,  "Israel  is  treated  as  an 
individual,  as  possessing  a  solidarity  and  continuity  of  life,  as  responsible  for 
its  actions.  Jehovah's  covenant  is  with  the  nation,  not,  primarily,  with  the 
individuals  of  the  nation.  It  is  in  the  later  prophets  that  the  doctrine  of  per- 
sonal responsibility  begins  to  appear,  which  is  fully  developed  in  the  New 
Testament." — Doctrine  of  the  Prophets,  p.  129. 


1 2  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lect. 

their  noblest  hope  of  the  future  they  never  conceived  of 
Him  as  the  God  of  other  races  and  tribes  in  the  same 
way  as  He  was  the  God  of  the  Jews.  Israel  remained 
still  His  peculiar  people.  The  heathen  nations  would 
submit  to  His  authority,  and  come  to  worship  at  Zion. 
But  their  position  would  be  one  of  subjection.  They 
would  show  forth  His  glory  by  doing  homage  to  His 
power,  but  not  by  entering  into  that  direct  relation  of 
loving  obedience  sustained  by  the  children  of  Abraham. 
Just  because  Isaiah  and  Micah  could  not  rise  to  the 
universality  of  man's  obligation  to  God,  they  failed  to 
realise  the  depth  of  its  individual  content.  That  which 
was  deepest  in  their  religious  consciousness  was  associated, 
not  with  the  essential  characteristic  of  humanity,  but  with 
the  special  gifts  conferred  upon  Israel.  And  though  in 
the  course  of  time  the  moral  conception,  which  was  the 
heart  of  the  matter,  necessarily  broke  through  the  inade- 
quate form  in  which  it  clothed  itself,  yet  so  long  as  this 
national  restriction  lasted  it  obscured  the  full  value  of 
the  single  soul  to  God. 

The  deliverance  of  the  prophetic  thought  from  its 
limitations  came  in  the  only  possible  way, — through  the 
teaching  of  events  that  lowered  the  national  pride.  It 
was  on  the  eve  of  that  destruction  of  the  Jewish  state 
which  he  perceived  to  be  inevitable,  that  Jeremiah  spoke 
(;f  a  time  when  God  would  write  His  new  covenant  on 
men's  hearts,  and  all  should  know  Him  from  the  least  to 
the  greatest.^  It  was  during  the  bitterness  of  the  Exile 
that  ICzekicl  dwelt  so  strenuously  on  the  absolutely 
personal  character  of  righteousness,  "  The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die," 2  and  that  the  Second  Isaiah  beheld 
1  Jor.  xxxi.  31-34,  cf.  29,  30.  2  i£2ek.  xviii.  20. 


I.]  Moral  Self -Consciousness  13 

in  the  future  the  participation  of  all  nations  in  the  salva- 
tion of  God  as  their  common  strength  and  joy.^  Jewish 
particularism  was  being  purged  out  by  disaster,  and  the 
true  service  of  God  disclosed  in  its  universal  and  indi- 
vidual greatness.^  On  the  individual  side  the  ultimate 
expression  to  which  Judaism  attained  is  found  in  those 
Psalms  which  belong  probably  to  the  time  of  the  Persian 
and  Greek  domination.  Conscious  of  the  glorious  past 
of  Israel,  and  humiliated  by  her  present  debasement,  the 
psalmist  is  thrown  back  upon  himself,  and  holds  his 
lonely  colloquy  with  his  God.^  The  absence  of  the  out- 
ward divine  witness  in  a  holy  nation  does  not  destroy 
his  religious  faith,  it  intensifies  it ;  revealing  to  him  the 
abysmal  deeps  of  his  own  personality  and  the  mysterious 
reality  and  riches  of  the  divine  fellowship.  It  is  this 
detachment  from  external  conditions  which  gives  the 
Psalms  their  permanent  value  as  the  utterance  of  a 
soul  deserted  or  despised  of  men,  but  full  face  with 
God. 

A  well-known  epigram  *  declares  that  there  are  two 
facts  in  history  which  astonish  us, — that  Shakespeare 
was  born  an  Englishman,  and  that  Jesus  Christ  was  born 
a  Jew.  But  the  contrast  of  Christ  with  Judaism  lies  on 
the  surface:  His  affinity  with  it  is  central.  He  came  in 
the  line  of  the  Jewish  prophets  and  psalmists.  He  both 
absorbed  and  purified   their  ideals.      It  might  seem  as  if 

^  Isa.  Ix. 

2  "Israel  on  the  way  to  Exile  is  on  the  way  to  become  Israel  after  the 
Spirit."     G.  A.  Smith,  Book  of  Isaiah,  vol.  ii.  p.  29. 

^  See  Pfleiderer,  Philosophy  and  De7ielopf?ieni  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp. 
57,  58. 

^  The  epigram,  I  think,  is  Heine's,  but  I  cannot  recall  the  precise 
reference.  See,  however,  his  Shakespeare' s  Mddchen  iind  Fratien  (edit. 
1839),  p.  I,  where  the  same  contrast  is  treated  with  incisive  irony. 


14  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lect. 

their  conception  of  human  obHgation  in  the  service  of 
the  Holy  One  could  not  be  surpassed  in  depth  and  keen- 
ness. Yet  while  He  accepted  it,  He  gave  it  a  fuller  and 
richer  significance  by  the  higher  revelation  He  made  of 
God's  character  as  the  Father.  The  psalmist  had  said, 
"  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord 
pitieth  them  that  fear  Him."  Jesus  said  in  effect,  "  The 
Father  pitieth  all  souls  that  He  hath  made,  because  they 
are  His  children.  He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  on  the  good."  This  beneficence  to  just  and 
unjust  alike  was  the  proof,  not  of  God's  moral  indifference, 
but  of  His  measureless  longsuffering  and  His  passion  to 
redeem.  Just  as  He  was  mindful  of  those  who  feared 
Him,  and  did  not  cast  them  off  in  their  times  of  faith- 
lessness ;  so  He  did  not  withdraw,  even  from  those  who 
feared  Him  not,  the  influences  and  beseechings  of  His 
grace.  God  was  no  more,  as  of  old,  fundamentally  the 
Holy  One  who  was  also  good;  but  essentially  He  was 
the  perfect  Love,  which  is  perfect  Holiness  and  something 
more,  holiness  with  an  inner  necessity  of  self-communi- 
cation. The  intimacy  of  this  Fatherly  relation  in  which 
God  stood  to  man  not  only  added  a  darker  hue  to  each 
transgression,  but  enlarged  the  range  of  the  service  which 
man  as  son  owed  to  God.  It  drove  him  to  a  keener 
self-searching,  because  it  awoke  in  him  the  consciousness 
of  a  more  blessed  destiny.  So  long  as  holiness  is  for  us 
the  final  determinative  quality  in  God,  our  conception  of 
likeness  to  Him  is  apt  to  assume  somewhat  of  a  negative 
character.  Goodness  means  then  individual  severance 
from  evil,  and  tends  to  grow  self-centred.  But  when  we 
see  that  the  determinative  quality  in  God  is  love,  our 
duty  to  Him   is  transformed  into  a  positive  and   endless 


I.]  Moral  Self -Conscioicsness  15 

service.  His  unceasing  self-communication  by  which  He 
deals  with  men  as  they  are,  only  in  reference  to  what 
they  ought  to  be  and  may  yet  become,  constitutes  the  law, 
as  it  is  the  basis  and  inspiration,  of  our  obedience.  We 
can  rest  in  nothing  short  of  that  perfection  which  is 
already  complete  in  Him. 

Very  closely  allied  to  this  thought  of  the  moral  value 
of  the  individual  to  God  is  the  idea  of  his  immortality. 
Christ's  argument  for  the  continued  personal  existence  of 
the  patriarchs  rests  upon  this  ground,  that  the  fellowship 
into  which  God  entered  with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob 
was  the  expression  of  His  eternal  love,  and  made  them 
partakers  of  His  eternity.  A  communion  like  this  is 
"  not  born  for  death."  But  the  more  profound  and 
penetrating  it  is,  the  more  complete  God's  self-imparta- 
tion  and  man's  capacity  of  receiving  it,  so  much  the 
more  clearly  is  man  bound  up  with  the  abidingness  of 
God.  If  his  immortality  is  involved  in  his  power  of 
knowing  God  as  the  Holy  and  Merciful  One,  it  becomes 
doubly  sure  when  God's  fellowship  with  him  has  the 
personal  significance,  the  specific  moral  content,  implied 
in  Fatherhood  and  Sonship.  The  recognition  of  it  is 
not  an  inference  from  that  fellowship :  it  is  a  realisa- 
tion of  what  the  fellowship  means.  In  a  remarkable 
passage  Mr.  Frederic  Myers  has  told  us  how  one  day 
at  Cambridge,  when  walking  with  George  Eliot  in 
the  Fellows'  Garden  at  Trinity,  "  she,  stirred  somewhat 
beyond  her  wont,  and  taking  as  her  text  the  three 
words  which  have  been  used  so  often  as  the  inspiring 
trumpet-calls  of  men — the  words,  God,  Immortality, 
Duty — pronounced  with  terrible  earnestness,  how  in- 
conceivable was  the  fiist,  how  unbelievable  the  second^ 


1 6  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lect. 

and  yet  how  peremptory  and  absolute  the  iliirdr^ 
The  idea  of  the  infinite  nature  of  duty,  which  is 
the  dominant  principle  of  religious  Positivism,  is  the 
distinct  creation  of  Christianity ;  and  it  certainly  could 
never  have  attained  its  present  range  and  intensity  had 
it  not  been  indissolubly  associated  with  the  other  two 
infinites  which  George  Eliot  rejected,  the  infinite  life  of 
God  in  which  we  share,  and  the  endlessness  of  our  com- 
munion with  Him.  It  is  a  shallow  misconception  to 
think  that  immortality  has  rather  a  quantitative  than  a 
qualitative  worth,  that  the  longer  or  shorter  existence  of 
the  individual  does  not  affect  his  essential  value  as  a 
moral  being.  There  are  cases,  and  this  is  one  of  them, 
where  quantity,  continuity,  does  emphatically  determine 
our  estimate  of  the  quality.  If  a  man  is  convinced  that 
the  duty  which  he  owes  to  others  operates  but  for  a 
season,  that  the  character  which  he  has  painfully  built 
up  in  moral  strength  and  attractiveness  will  soon  cease 
as  a  personal  force,  that  whatever  influence  may  flow 
from  him  after  death,  a  final  arrest  is  put  on  his  own 
spiritual  growth,  then  Duty  can  very  seldom  have  for 
him  the  range  or  imperativeness  which  would  attach  to 
it,  if  he  realised  that  every  present  fidelity  and  failure 
had  a  permanent  effect  in  moulding  the  service  he  will 
render  to  God  in  the  measureless  future.  If,  as  with 
George  Eliot,  this  sense  of  the  infinite  nature  of  duty 
remains  as  keen  as  in  a  Christian  saint,  it  becomes  an 
oppressive  weight.  Divorced  from  its  concomitant 
truths  of  God  and  immortality,  it  leads  to  a  weary 
and  pathetic  striving  after  an  ever-vanishing  ideal,  for 
the  attainment  of  which  the  soul  has  neither  the  support 
^  Essays :  Modem,  p.  269. 


^v 


I.]  Moral  Self-Consciotisness  17 

of  an  infinite  love  in  its  struggle,  nor  time  to  complete 
its  work.^ 

What  concerns  us  here,  however,  is  not  so  much  that 
the  conception  of  duty  as.  an  infinite  thing  suffers  a 
certain  depreciation  when  severed  from  the  sanctions  and 
inspirations  through  which  it  rose,  as  that  it  has  become 
in  one  form  or  other  an  inherent  principle  of  modern 
thought  and  action.  The  standard  of  obligation  may,  as 
with  the  Christian,  be  found  in  the  perfection  of  God,  or, 
as  with  the  Positivist,  in  the  constitution  of  human  nature 
itself;  but  in  both  cases  the  demand  which  it  makes  of 
them,  the  law  which  it  prescribes,  "  Die  to  self,  that  you 
may  live,"  is  infinite.  Their  moral  consciousness  inevit- 
ably bears  a  double  witness.  The  more  it  assures  them 
of  an  increasing  harmony  with  the  ideal  of  self-sacrifice, 
the  more  it  accentuates  their  divergence  from  it.  The 
harmony  and  the  divergence  are  two  permanent  sides  of  the 
one  spiritual  experience.  Yet  He  who  has  awaked  men 
to  this  ideal,  and  for  whom  it  existed  in  Its  ultimate  and 
most  imperative  form,  had  the  sense  of  harmony  without 
the  divergence;  that  is.  He  was  free  from  an  element 
which  exists  universally  in  the  religious  life,  and  through 
which  that  life,  as  we  know  it,  is  built  up.  What,  then, 
are  the  grounds  which  render  it  impossible  for  us  to 
doubt  that  Jesus  actually  possessed  this  unique  character- 
istic ? 

In  such  an  inquiry  we  are,  of  course,  not  entitled  to 
presuppose  the  inspiration  of  the  four  Gospels.  We  have 
to  deal  with  them  simply  as  accounts,  professing  to  be 
historical,  of  the  acts   and   words  of  Jesus,  and   to  treat 

*  See   Note   2,    p.    383,    "The    Consequence    of    divorcing   Duty   from 
Immortality." 


1 8  The  Uniqueness  of  Ch'isfs  [Lect. 

them  as  any  other  documents  of  the  same  class.  Leaving 
aside  the  Fourth  Gospel  for  the  present  and  dealing  only 
with  the  Synoptics,  there  is  a  general  consensus  of 
critical  opinion  that  to  a  large  degree  they  are  drawn 
from  two  common  sources,  one  a  narrative  of  the  Acts  of 
Jesus,  more  or  less  similar  to  Mark's  Gospel ;  the  other 
a  collection  of  His  Sayings,  written  probably  by  the 
Apostle  Matthew,  and  forming  the  basis  of  the  canonical 
Gospel  bearing  his  name.^  These  were  not  in  any  sense 
a  complete  record,  and  various  additional  incidents  and 
utterances  seem  to  have  been  preserved  either  orally  or 
in  written  form.  This  is  practically  implied  by  the 
statement  of  Luke  in  his  preface,  that  he  found  many 
narratives  in  existence  regarding  Christ's  life.  His 
Gospel  itself  contains  miracles,  parables,  and  sayings 
which  have  no  parallel  in  the  first  two  Gospels,-  and 
which  probably  had  some  other  origin  than  the  two 
sources  mentioned  above.  He  claims  to  trace  the  course 
of  events  accurately  from  the  very  first  by  a  careful 
examination  of  all  his  available  materials.  The  differ- 
ences between  the  Synoptics,  so  manifest  and  so  remark- 
able, have  been  explained  by  some  critics  ^  as  owing  to 
the  diverse  sources  from  which  they  drew  ;  and  by  others* 

^  See  Beyschlag,  N.T.  Theology^  vol.  i.  pp.  29-31  ;  "Bruce,  Kingdom  of 
God,  pp.  1-4. 

-  Whether  the  First  or  the  Third  Gospel  presents  the  more  primitive 
version  is  a  question  which  will  probably  never  be  finally  decided.  As  it  has 
to  be  determined  by  internal  evidence,  the  "  personal  equation  "  must  always 
enter  into  the  critical  verdict.  In  different  passages  the  balance  seems  to 
incline  now  to  the  one  Gospel,  now  to  the  other.  Luke  certainly  connects 
the  sayings  of  Christ  much  more  accurately  than  Matthew  with  the  incidents 
out  of  which  they  sprang  ;  but  his  arrangement  of  the  incidents  themselves 
p.iys  little  regard  to  chronological  order.  Cf.  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays^ 
p.  180  ;  Bruce,  Kingdom  of  God,  pp.  9- 1 4. 

'  Weizsacker.  *  Bruce. 


I.]  Moral  Self-Coiiscio2tsness  19 

as  partly  due  to  the  Evangelists  themselves,  to  their 
individual  characteristics,  and  the  special  purpose  they 
had  in  view.  But  in  whatever  particulars  they  vary,  they 
are  absolutely  uniform  in  their  picture  of  Christ's  moral 
self-witness.  They  portray  Him  as  confessing  ignorance,^ 
as  overwhelmed  with  grief,  as  wrestling  in  prayer.  The 
reality  of  His  humanity,  His  utter  dependence  on  the 
Father,  His  obedience  to  a  Will  above  His  own,  these 
are  set  forth  with  the  greatest  emphasis  through  all  the 
v^ariety  of  His  experience.  But  the  note  of  contrition 
which  ever  belongs  to  the  saintly  soul  is  in  His  case 
wholly  absent.  Yet,  according  to  all  human  analogy,  it 
ought  to  have  been  more  pronounced  in  Him  than  in 
others.  As  He  surpassed  all  in  His  sense  of  nearness  to 
God,  so  He  ought  to  have  surpassed  them  in  the  depth 
of  His  humiliations. 

We  have  to  remember  that  the  question  here  is  not 
regarding  a  particular  incident  or  isolated  saying  of 
Christ  which  might  have  passed  unobserved,  or  at  least 
been  speedily  forgotten.  A  single  moral  fault  com- 
mitted by  a  hitherto  stainless  soul,  if  we  can  imagine 
that,  alters  its  entire  relation  to  God.  Penitence,  how- 
ever true,  will  not  restore  its  stainlessness  :  that  is  gone 
for  ever.  It  can  no  longer  take  up  the  attitude  of 
unbroken  fellowship  and  loyalty.  Even  if  it  could 
maintain  its  fidelity  henceforth,  it  could  never  rid  itself 
of  the  dark  memory,  but  must  perpetually  approach  the 
Father  as  one  conscious  of  a  great  failure  and  pleading 
an  unmerited  mercy.      But  such  future  fidelity  is  impos- 

^  Mark  xiii.  32.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  parallel  passage  in 
Matthew  (xxiv.  36)  also  contains  the  words  oi}5e  6  vios.  See  Westcott  and 
Hort,  n,  ;  Gore,  Dissertations,  p.  84,  n. 


20 


The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lect. 


sible.  The  moral  nature  is  a  unity ;  and  the  spirit  of 
selfishness  or  revolt  out  of  which  the  one  sin  sprang 
tends  to  repeat  itself,  and  leaves  no  portion  of  the  inward 
life  untouched.  In  a  deep  sense,  "  he  that  offends  in  one 
point  is  guilty  of  all."  The  consciousness  of  unworthi- 
ness  is  thus  not  an  occasional,  but  an  abiding  element  in 
character.  It  penetrates  and  colours  all  thought  and 
feeling.  Therefore,  if  it  belonged  to  Christ,  it  must  have 
continually  manifested  itself,  and  become  an  inseparable 
part  of  the  impression  He  produced.  But  such  a 
supposition  is  utterly  contradicted  by  the  whole  pre- 
sentation given  us  in  the  first  three  Gospels,  by  Christ's 
references  to  Himself  as  the  Founder  of  the  new  kingdom 
of  God,  by  His  attitude  to  those  who  acknowledged  their 
sinfulness  before  Him,  by  His  conduct  at  the  Last 
Supper.  It  had  evidently  not  a  fragment  of  support  in 
the  very  varied  sources  known  to  the  Synoptic  writers, 
and  what  they  did  find  there  constitutes  an  emphatic 
refutation  of  it. 

Now  the  Synoptic  account,  so  far  as  it  bears  on  the 
question  of  Christ's  moral  self-revelation,  has  a  direct 
truthfulness,  and  a  coherence  and  unity  of  impression, 
wholly  unaccountable  unless  it  be  substantially  a  repro- 
duction of  the  statements  and  belief  of  the  twelve 
disciples  themselves.  But  we  have  other  means  of 
knowing  what  that  belief  was.  Peter  in  his  First  Epistle 
speaks  of  the  death  of  Christ  as  of  a  lamb  without 
blemish  and  without  spot,^  and  says  that  He  died-  for 
sins   once,  the   righteous    for   the   unrighteous,  that    He 

^  C'liap.  i.  19. 

^  diriOaffv,  not  liraOev.     Sec  WcslcoU  and  llort ;  Johnstone,  Comm.  on 
First  Ep.  of  Peter,  p.  xviii. 


•V 


I.]  Moral  Self-Consciousness  21 

might  bring  us  to  God.  The  Fourth  GospeP  and  the 
First  Epistle  of  John  are  penetrated  with  the  same  con- 
ception of  "  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous,"  and  whatever 
theory  be  entertained  regarding  the  actual  authorship  of 
both  as  they  now  stand,  they  could  never  have  borne  the 
name  of  the  son  of  Zebedee  in  the  early  Church,  unless 
they  represented  his  view  on  such  a  primary  point  as  the 
moral  nature  and  lordship  of  Jesus.  It  is,  moreover, 
absolutely  certain  from  the  undisputed  Epistles  of  Paul 
that  the  first  apostles  were  unanimous  on  this  point. 
With  regard  to  many  subjects,  he  had  to  contend  with 
them  ;  on  this,  he  had  only  to  repeat  and  endorse  their 
testimony.  It  was  a  fundamental  article  of  the  Church's 
creed,  laid  down  by  those  who  had  been  the  associates 
of  Jesus  in  His  earthly  life.  Their  verdict  cannot  be 
explained  away  by  saying  that  they  were  no  authorities 
on  the  inner  life  of  Jesus,  that  they  could  only  testify  to 
what  they  saw  and  heard,  and  that  their  witness  counts 
for  no  more  than  the  declaration  that  they  found  no  fault 
in  Him.  It  counts  for  a  great  deal  more.  To  argue 
thus  is  to  ignore  the  specific  characteristic  of  His  relation 
to  them.  In  all  His  intercourse  He  was  dealing  with 
their  spiritual  life,  leading  them  to  deeper  thoughts  of 
God  and  of  what  they  ought  to  be  to  Him,  impressing 
upon  them  with  irresistible  power  the  need  of  absolute 
reality  and  veracity  of  character.  Not  merely  His  words, 
but  His  very  presence  probed  their  hearts  and  made 
sincerity  for  them  the  first  of  moral  duties.      Yet  He  so 

^  That  the  Fourth  Gospel  depicts  the  sinless  self-consciousness  of  Jesus 
requires  no  argument ;  and  the  Synoptic  testimony  is  adequate  of  itself. 
I  have  felt  it  better,  therefore,  to  reserve  the  problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
till  the  next  lecture,  because  the  Johannine  presentation  of  the  self-witness  of 
Jesus  differs  in  some  measure  from  the  Synoptic. 


2  2  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ  s  fLect. 

bore  Himself  at  every  stage  as  to  convey  to  them  the 
inevitable  conviction  of  His  sinlessness.  If  there  was  any 
suppression  of  truth  in  this,  it  was  not  incidental,  but 
constant  and  uniform.  He  maintained  this  air  of  moral 
supremacy  and  isolation  most  markedly  in  those  great 
moments  when  He  lifted  them  into  the  closest  com- 
munion with  God,  when  He  spoke  most  solemnly  of 
Himself  and  the  mission  entrusted  to  Him  by  the 
Father.  Can  it  be  rationally  supposed  that  He  who  has 
branded  hypocrisy  as  the  most  odious  of  sins,  could 
have  committed  it  in  its  most  awful  form  ?  He,  if  any 
man,  had  "  truth  in  the  inward  parts,"  and  was  driven 
by  the  necessity  of  His  being  so  to  act  that  others  to 
whom  He  was  constantly  revealing  Himself  should  not 
cherish  any  untrue  idea  of  His  character.  Therefore 
the  testimony  of  the  apostles  is  no  external  thing.  Being 
founded  on  Christ's  self-manifestation  it  really  touches 
the  inmost  quality  of  His  life. 

There  is  one  fact  in  His  self-manifestation  which  in 
this  connection  demands  special  reference.  He  never 
united  with  the  disciples  in  prayer.  This  abstention  is 
a  matter  of  primary  significance,  for  it  severs  Him  from 
all  other  religious  teachers  and  prophets.  With  them, 
fellowship  in  devotion  has  ever  been  a  chief  means 
whereby  they  have  led  their  followers  into  the  secret 
places  of  the  Divine.  It  is  first  of  all  a  need  of  their 
personal  life,  and  keeps  the  heart  fresh  in  humility  and 
brotherly  love.  Without  it,  their  own  vision  of  God 
would  become  blurred.  So  also  it  binds  to  them  the 
hearts  of  others  whom  they  are  seeking  to  guide  and 
uplift,  by  the  sense  that  it  imparts  of  a  common  experi- 
ence of  struggle  and   aspiration.      The   leader   may  have 


•V 


I.  ]  Moral  Self-  Consciousness  2  3 

far  surpassed  his  followers,  but  he  has  travelled  by  the 
same  road,  and  has  not  yet  reached  the  goal.  His  loftier 
attainment  is  thus  not  an  oppression  and  a  despair,  but 
an  inspiration.  Christ  emphatically  recognised  the  value 
of  united  prayer  for  the  soul's  quickening  and  refresh- 
ment. "  I  say  unto  you,  If  two  of  you  shall  agree  on 
earth  as  touching  anything  that  they  shall  ask,  it  shall  be 
done  for  them  of  My  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  For 
where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  My  name, 
there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them."  ^  But  there  is  not  the 
slightest  indication,  either  in  the  Synoptics  or  in  John, 
that  He  observed  it.  At  the  Transfiguration,  Luke  tells 
us,  "  He  took  Peter  and  John  and  James,  and  went  up 
into  a  mountain  to  pray.  And,  as  He  prayed,  the 
fashion  of  His  countenance  was  altered."  The  disciples 
had  fallen  into  a  state  of  deep  depression  in  consequence 
of  the  declaration  of  His  approaching  death ;  Jesus  was 
anxious  to  raise  them  from  their  dangerous  stupor.  In 
order  to  do  this,  says  Godet,  He  took  them  to  the  mount 
"  to  pray  with  them,  knowing  by  experience  the  influence 
a  sojourn  upon  some  height  has  upon  the  soul."^  But 
the  Evangelist  does  not  say  that  our  Lord  went  up  to 
pray  "  with  them."  He  went  up  to  pray ^  to  pour  out  His 
heart  to  the  Eternal  Father.  It  was  nightfall,  and  the 
disciples,  having  engaged  in  their  own  evening  devotions, 
had  lain  down  to  sleep.  But  still  their  Master  was  wrapt 
in  a  divine  communion,  and  as  He  coiitmued  prayings  the 
Transfiguration  came  to   Him.      The   brightness  of  the 

^  Matt,  xviii.  19,  20. 

^  Comment,  on  St.  Luke,  in  loc.  So  Weiss,  ' '  They  could  not  have 
beheld  this  vision,  if  Jesus  had  not  allowed  them  to  participate  in  His  life  of 
prayer,  and  if  He  had  not  prayed  with  and  for  them,  in  order  to  strengthen 
their  weak  faith." — Life  of  Christ,  vol.  iii.  p.  99,  «. 


24  The  Uniqueness  of  Chrisfs  [Lect. 

lic,^ht  that  clothed  Ilim  awoke  the  sleeping  apostles. 
The  encouragement  imparted  to  them  in  their  dejection 
sprang,  not  from  their  prayers  with  Him,  but  from  the 
revelation  that  came  to  them  through  His  prayer. 

Consider,  too,  what  is  implied  in  such  an  account  as 
this :  "  It  came  to  pass,  as  He  was  praying  in  a  certain 
place,  that  when  He  ceased,  one  of  His  disciples  said 
unto  Him,  Lord,  teach  us  to  pra}',  as  John  also  taught 
his  disciples.  And  He  said  unto  them,  When  ye  pray, 
say,  Father,  hallowed  be  Thy  name."^  Professor  Bruce- 
argues  that  this  request  implies  that  Jesus  practised 
family  prayer  as  the  head  of  a  household,  and  that  it 
was  the  impressiveness  of  His  social  prayers  which  made 
the  disciples  conscious  of  the  feeble,  vague,  stammering 
words  in  which  they  uttered  their  wants  to  God,  and 
led  them  to  long  for  His  instruction  and  guidance.  But 
is  it  not  precisely  the  opposite  inference  which  should 
be  drawn  ?  Either  these  social  prayers  which  He  is 
supposed  to  have  daily  offered  were  practically  identical 
with  the  prayer  which  He  now  prescribed, — in  which 
case  the  disciples  already  knew  how  He  meant  them  to 
approach  God, — or  they  differed,  as  I  hope  to  show 
they  must  have  done,  in  one  central  point,  in  which  case 
they  would  have  been  an  inadequate  expression  of  the 
disciples'  needs.  Jesus  was  evidently  in  the  habit  of 
passing  up  into  special  personal  communion  with  God, 
even  when  others  stood  by  His  side.  "It  came  to  pass 
as   He  was  alone  praying,  His  disciples  were  with    Him, 

^  Luke  xi.  I  (R.W).  This  is  Luke's  form  of  the  Lord's  Prayer:  the 
longer  form  is  in  Matthew.  Here,  as  usual,  Luke  gives  the  historic  setting  ; 
but  it  is  not  so  certain  that  his  version  of  the  words  is  the  more  accurate. 
Cf.  Meyer,  St.  Matthew  ;  Godet,  and  Plummcr,  St.  Luke,  in  loc. 

^  Bruce,  The  'I  raining  of  the  Twelve,  P-  S^- 


■V 


I.]  Moral  Self -Consciousness  25 

and  He  asked  them,  Who  do  the  multitudes  say  that  I 
am  ?  "  ^  These  seasons,  when  the  Master  was  with  them 
and  yet  withdrawn  from  them  into  an  inward  fellowship, 
"  had  always  a  peculiar  solemnity  for  those  that  sur- 
rounded Him."  ^  They  bore  home  to  the  disciples  the 
secret  of  His  life,  the  elevation  and  strength  that  flow 
from  prayer ;  and  it  was  only  natural  that,  seeing  the 
inspiration  which  it  brought  Him  in  every  crisis  of  His 
experience,  they  should  long  to  enter  more  fully  into  its 
blessedness.  "  Lord,  teach  us  to  pray.  And  He  said, 
When  j/^  pi'a-y,  say  .  .  ."  It  was  tJieir  prayer,  not  His. 
And  why  not  His  ?  Because  it  had  in  the  heart  of  it  a 
petition  which  He  could  never  utter :  "  Forgive  us  our 
sins  ;  for  we  also  forgive  every  one  that  is  indebted  to  us." 
Yet  that  petition  was  indispensable  for  them.  Every 
prayer  of  theirs  had  to  contain  an  element  of  confession 
before  it  could  be  acceptable  to  the  Father.  Even  when 
it  consisted  chiefly  of  adoration  or  supplication,  it  must 
be  permeated  by  the  feeling  of  unworthiness.  They 
could  only  draw  near  to  God  aright  as  penitents,  acknow- 
ledging mercies  which  they  had  not  deserved,  imploring 
a  grace  which  they  had  often  despised.  This  undertone 
of  shortcoming  was  to  be  the  note  of  their  devotion ; 
and  it  had  no  place  in  His.  Hence,  if  Jesus  practised 
family  prayer,  as  the  head  of  a  household,  either  it  con- 
tained, or  it  did  not  contain,  the  element  of  confession. 
If  it  did,  it  gave  the  disciples  a  false  impression  of  His 
character;  if  it  did  not,  it  led  to  a  false  idea  of  their 
own.  In  either  case,  it  would  have  lessened  that  con- 
viction of  His  peculiar  and  unshared  relation  to  God 
which  all  other  phases  of  His  conduct  tended  to  produce. 
^  Luke  ix.  18.  -  Godet. 


26  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ' s  [Lect. 

This  incident  is  almost  in  itself  decisive.  But  it 
does  not  stand  alone  ;  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  entire 
picture  of  Christ  as  given  in  the  Gospels.  In  taking 
leave  of  His  followers,  He  abstains  from  that  form  of 
farewell  which  religious  teachers  in  all  ages  have  ob- 
served. We  recognise  the  "  touch  of  nature  "  when  St. 
Paul,  after  his  address  to  the  Ephesian  elders,  who  feared 
they  should  see  his  face  no  more,  kneeled  down  and 
prayed  with  them  all.^  How  better  could  he  part  with 
them  than  at  the  "  feet  of  God  "  ?  But  Christ's  last 
prayer  ^  was  a  prayer  not  ivith  them,  but  for  them  ;  and 
in  its  references  to  Himself,  when  His  whole  life  lay  in 
the  past,  is  absolutely  free  from  those  experiences  of 
remembered  fault  which  give  to  all  our  devotion  its 
sharpest  cry,  "  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth ;  I 
have  finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest  Me  to  do." 
There  is  not  a  whisper  of  contrition  ;  only  the  spirit  of 
a  perfect  confidence,  and  the  ring  of  an  assured  triumph. 
The  best  of  men  hopes  to  enter  heaven  but  as  a  humble 
penitent ;  Jesus  enters  it  as  a  conqueror. 

The  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  here  at  one. 
They  all  speak  of  His  prayers,  and  even  record  for  us 
some  of  the  words  He  used  in  His  thanksgivings,  sup- 
plications, and  intercessions ;  but  uniformly  represent 
Him  as  solitary  in  His  devotion,  in  circumstances  where 
all  human  analogy  and  the  very  needs  of  the  soul  itself 
would  lead  us  to  expect  a  fellowship.  How  could  they 
possibly  omit  all  allusion  to  what,  if  it  occurred  at  all, 
must  have  been  a  part  of  His  daily  intercourse  with  His 
followers,  and  the  recollection  of  which  would  be  specially 
treasured?       It    is   not   one    passage  here  or  there   that 

*  Acts  XX.  36.  2  JqIjjj  xvii. 


I .  ]  Moral  Self-  Consciousness  2  7 

compels  this  conclusion  regarding  Him;  it  is  the  tenor 
and  cast  of  the  narrative  as  a  whole.  There  is  but  one 
explanation  of  so  strange  an  isolation.  Jesus  showed 
His  true  humanity  in  this,  that  prayer  was  as  necessary 
for  Him  as  for  others ;  and  the  fact  that  He  never 
observed  it  in  a  social  form  is  one  of  the  many  proofs 
that  He  was  conscious  of  standing  in  a  relation  of  moral 
rectitude  towards  the  Father  attained  by  none  other  of 
the  sons  of  men.^ 

The  full  significance  of  such  a  consciousness  on  His 
part  is  apt  to  be  lost  by  us  from  the  negative  shape  in 
which  we  express  it.  The  word  sinlessness  suggests  at 
first  rather  the  absence  of  defect  than  the  presence  of  an 
active  and  pervading  holiness.  But  negative  though  its 
form  be,  its  content  is  supremely  positive.  In  ordinary 
usage  we  divide  sins  into  those  of  commission  and  of 
omission.  Our  duty  is  violated,  not  only  by  acts  of  sheer 
wrong-doing,  but  also  by  leaving  out  of  our  life  that 
which  God  meant  to  be  there.  It  is  in  this  latter  aspect 
that  the  sense  of  sin  overwhelms  us  with  an  infinite 
oppressiveness.  The  lie  which  we  are  tempted  to  tell 
is  a  definite  thing :  we  are,  as  it  were,  brought  face  to 
face  with  it.  Whether  we  yield  or  resist,  we  feel  that  we 
can  in  a  manner  estimate  the  character  of  the  fault.^ 
But  the  helpful   service  which  we  might  have  rendered, 

^  See  Note  3,  p.  385  ;  and  specially  Appendix,  p.  472. 

^  We  cannot,  indeed,  measure  our  total  responsibility,  even  in  telling  a 
single  falsehood  ;  for  our  blameworthiness  can  only  be  fully  judged  by  refer- 
ence to  the  backgrounds  of  our  character  and  our  whole  past  relation  to  the 
moral  possibilities  of  our  life.  But  there  is  a  definite  calculable  fact  in  the 
foreground,  whereas  the  omitted  duties  of  self-sacrifice  have  frequently  no 
foreground  at  all.  They  may  have  never  entered  into  our  consciousness.  We 
are  only  sure  that  we  have  been  guilty  of  such,  but  cannot  tell  what  or  how 
great  they  are. 


28  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lcct. 

but    neglected,  belongs    to   the   incalculable.       We   have 

no  standard  of  measurement    here,  and   are  carried   far 

into  the  unconscious  backgrounds  of  our  life.      We  have, 

for  example,  a  certain   piece   of  work   to  do,  and   we  do 

it ;   but  can  we  ever  say  we   have  done  it  fully  ?      How 

many  elements  enter  into  its  right  performance.       Even 

if  we    accomplish   it   to    the  best   of  our  ability,  is  that 

ability  all   that   it   might   have  been  ?      Have  our  habits 

in    the    past    preserved    and    matured    for    us    the    best 

energies  of  body  and  mind,  the  finest  perceptions  of  the 

soul  ? 

"  Our  deeds  still  travel  "with  us  from  afar, 
And  what  wc  have  been  makes  us  what  we  are." 

We  know  with  absolute  certainty  that  there  have  been 
times  when  moods  of  self-indulgence  or  evil  temper  have 
possessed  us,  and  that  they  have  now  become  interwoven 
with  an  inextricable  series  of  experiences.  The  wilful- 
ness of  yesterday  may  be  repented  of,  and  that  repentance 
may  be  the  means  of  opening  to  us  wonderful  visions  of 
God's  law  or  love ;  but  whatever  it  does  for  us,  it  does 
not  bring  us  just  the  strength  that  would  have  come 
from  obedience  to  what  God  originally  demanded  of  us. 
That  demand  of  His  we  know  to  be  the  ultimate  test  of 
our  duty,  and  no  mystery  attaching  to  the  spiritual 
blessing  that  occasionally  comes  through  revulsion  from 
past   misdoing  can   blind   us   to  that  fact. 

As  every  act  is  thus  the  expression  of  a  moral 
being,  which  has  been  created  by  all  former  fidelities  and 
failures,  it  involves  in  itself  an  endless  complexity  of 
elements.  We  cannot  .say  of  any  service  we  perform 
that  it  is  what  it  should  have  been.  I  may  strive  in 
the   most  unselfish  way  to  help   some  distressed  soul  ;   I 


I.]  Moral  Self-Consciousness  29 

may  act  up  to  my  knowledge  and  do  the  best  1  can  for 
him ;  but  my  knowledge  of  spiritual  needs  has  been 
coloured  by  my  past  imperfect  practice.  To  what  extent 
it  has  been  impaired  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  estimate. 
This  incapacity  to  realise  the  degree  of  our  shortcoming 
is  one  of  the  heaviest  burdens  of  the  spiritual  life.  Nor 
is  there  any  escape  from  it ;  it  grows  heavier  with  every 
advance  in  spirituality. 

We  see,  then,  how  immensely  positive  Christ's  con- 
sciousness of  sinlessness  is.  It  is  the  affirmation  of  His 
fulfilment,  in  all  its  details,  of  the  ideal  of  life  prescribed 
by  the  Father.  He  is  touched  by  no  such  hesitancies 
as  are  inevitable  in  our  dealings  with  others.  When 
He  lays  upon  the  young  ruler  a  command  of  obedience 
so  testing  that  the  latter  goes  away  sorrowful.  His  love 
for  the  young  soul  in  its  struggle  opens  up  no  question 
in  His  mind  as  to  the  wisdom  of  so  severe  an  injunction. 
That  is  the  doubt  that  haunts  us  when  we  have  spoken 
some  unpalatable  truth,  and  found  our  remonstrance  un- 
availing. Have  we  not  gone  too  far?  Was  this  not  a 
case  where  gentleness  and  encouragement  might  have 
succeeded  ?  And  so  we  are  tossed  about  by  endless  and 
indefinable  regrets.  Jesus  has  the  clear  assurance  that 
He  is  not  in  any  way  responsible  for  "  the  great  refusal." 
He  denounces  the  Pharisees  in  terms  of  exceptional 
sternness,  and  has  no  misgivings — just  what  the  earnest 
and  pure  soul  cannot  get  rid  of — lest  disappointment  or 
anger  may  have  given  a  keener  edge  to  His  words,  or 
caused  needless  offence  to  some  simple  heart.  Yet  those 
personal  problems  bearing  on  our  right  relation  to  others 
which  zve  feel  we  never  solve,  and,  at  the  most,  make 
only  distant  approximations  towards  solving,  were  surely 


3©  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ' s  [Lect. 

peculiarly  subtle  and  complicated  in  Christ's  case,  from 
what  He  professed  to  be  and  do.  He  had  to  relate  His 
new  doctrine  to  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  an  established 
faith,  to  pronounce  judgment  on  the  most  sacred  tradi- 
tions, to  retain,  reject,  transform,  and  to  bear  home  His 
message  to  those  whose  hearts  and  minds  were  saturated 
with  the  faith  which  He  came  at  once  to  supersede  and  to 
complete.  He  had  also  so  to  act  Himself  that  His  life 
should  be  a  guarantee  and  proof  of  the  truth  He  de- 
clared, which  was  peculiarly  bound  up  with  His  own 
personality.  It  was  a  work  which,  from  the  normal  point 
of  view,  teemed  with  searching  perplexities  as  to  what  it 
was  necessary  to  declare  at  any  period  and  what  to  with- 
hold, in  the  interest  of  the  message  itself  and  the  varied 
characters  with  which  He  had  to  deal.  The  strenuous 
moral  enthusiast  or  the  aspiring  saint  tends,  in  spite  of 
himself,  to  constant  introspection.  It  is  the  accompani- 
ment of  his  spiritual  honesty.  He  may  be  quite  aware 
that  it  has  an  unhealthy  side,  but  a  keen  self-examina- 
tion is  his  only  preservative  against  a  possible  self- 
deception.^  This  kind  of  self-criticism  has  no  place  in 
Jesus.  His  life  is  woven  in  one  piece.  The  dominant 
feeling  that  it  leaves  with  us  is  that  of  wholeness,  of 
unity.  The  parts  and  stages  of  it  blend  into  each 
other,  not  from  a  consciously-planned  scheme,  but  from 
the  natural  unfolding  of  an  inner  necessity.  Vestigia 
7iulla  rctrorsuiii.  He  comes  to  each  new  duty  untram- 
melled by  any  rebuking  memories,  and  the  problems 
of  casuistry  have  no  meaning  for  Him.  In  all  the 
diversity  of  His  relations  with  men  He  addresses  each 
with  the  same  unwavering  note  of  authority.      That  He 

^  See  Note  4,  p.  3S6,  "The  'morbidity'  of  Self-examination." 


I.]  Moral  Self -Consciousness  31 

is  able  to  do  so  implies  at  the  very  least  that  He  is 
conscious  He  has  never  deflected  at  any  point  from 
the  line  prescribed,  has  taken  each  stage  as  it  came,  and 
got  out  of  it  all  that  the  Father  meant  Him  to  get ;  and 
so  He  confronts  the  present  with  an  undimmed  con- 
fidence. It  is  not  the  victory  of  a  soul  that  selects 
carefully  from  conflicting  courses,  but  of  one  that  walks 
right  onward  in  the  security  of  a  divine  communion. 

Thus  He  who  has  widened  to  infinity  the  bounds  of 
personal  obligation,  and  intensified  in  men  the  abiding 
sense  of  lost  opportunities  and  dishonoured  ideals.  Him- 
self retains  the  unclouded  serenity  which  is  the  "  bright 
consummate  flower "  of  self-realisation.  This  is  not  a 
difference  of  attainment  in  goodness ;  it  is  a  different 
type  of  moral  character,  another  order  of  humanity. 

Attempts,  indeed,  have  been  made  to  dispute  the 
perfect  holiness  of  Jesus  by  challenging  His  conduct  in 
particular  instances.  It  has  been  said  that  in  His  boy- 
hood He  displays  a  want  of  filial  obedience ;  that  when 
He  drives  the  buyers  and  sellers  out  of  the  Temple  He 
exhibits  an  excess  of  passion  ;  that  in  the  deliverance 
of  the  Gadarene  demoniac  He  unwarrantably  destroys 
the  property  of  others ;  that  He  treats  the  Syro-Phoen- 
ician  woman  with  a  harshness  that  suggests  contempt. 
It  is  not  needful  to  dwell  on  these  objections.^  They 
largely  rest  on  an  abstract  treatment  of  certain  elements 
in  the  case,  and  a  misappreciation  of  the  spiritual  issues 
involved.  Any  slight  difficulty  that  remains,  as  Godet 
points  out,  springs  from  our  ignorance,  in  part,  of  the 
precise  circumstances  which  determined  Jesus'  action. 
But   the   real    and    final    answer   is  that   He  stood    self- 

^  For  a  detailed  discussion,  see  Godet,  Defence  of  the  Faith ^  pp.  193-200. 


32  The  Uniqiiencss  of  Chvisf  s  fLect. 

vindicated  ;  that  the  memory  of  these  incidents  brought 
Ilini  no  tremor  of  regret  in  later  hours.  This  cannot 
be  explained  by  any  lower  ideals  or  lack  of  moral  self- 
knowledge  on  His  part;  and  if  He  followed  unperturbed 
a  course  which  at  all  perplexes  us,  it  was  because  His 
clearer  vision  perceived  facts  which  lie  beyond  our  range. 
There  is  only  one  instance  of  this  kind  which  merits 
any  special  examination.  It  is  that  wherein  Jesus,  in 
His  conversation  with  the  young  man  who  asked  how  to 
attain  eternal  life,  refuses  to  be  called  "  Good."  ^  "  There 
is  none  good  but  One,  that  is,  God."  What  Jesus  rejects 
here  is  the  epithet  as  applied  by  the  ruler,  which  in  his 
lips  was  a  title  of  conventional  courtesy.  It  had  no 
moral  depth  or  inwardness.  Jesus  will  not  have  the 
holiest  terms  thus  cheapened,  and  restores  to  the  word  its 
true  content  by  reminding  him  that  there  is  only  one 
Being  absolutely  good,  and  that  all  goodness  in  men 
flows  from  Him.  He  Himself  as  man  is  not  good  in  the 
absolute  sense,  as  God  is,  but  draws  His  goodness  from 
a  complete  dependence  on  the  Father.  Of  this  human 
perfection  there  is  no  repudiation  in  Christ's  words,  for 
the  ruler  did  not  believe  He  possessed  it.  There  is  only 
a  refusal  to  accept  the  designation  when  it  was  not 
bestowed  on  right  grounds.  Some  have  interpreted  the 
passage  as  if  it  meant,  "  Only  God  is  good,  but  you  do 
not  recognise  Me  as  God  ;  therefore  you  ought  not  to 
call  Me  good."      This   seems   to   me   less  likely  for  many 

^  ri  fie  X^yeis  dyadou  ;  This  is  the  true  reading,  as  given  in  Mark  and 
Luke.  Matthew's  version,  as  it  is  now  accepted,  "Why  askest  thou  Me 
concerning  that  which  is  good  ?  "  is  apparently  a  modification,  arising  from  the 
fear  of  inferences  hostile  to  the  purity  of  Jesus.  Meyer,  Cornm.  on  St.  Matt. 
xix.  17;  Godet,  Comm.  on  St.  Luke  xviii.  1 8.  Cf.  Gore,  Baiupton  Lectures^ 
pp.  13,  198  ;  and  Dissertations,  p.  96,  n. 


I.]  Moral  Self -Consciousness  '^^ 

reasons.^  But  whatever  view  is  taken,  the  only  im- 
possible  interpretation  is  that  which  represents  Jesus  as 
on  this  sole  occasion  disowning  a  perfection  which  His 
entire  life  before  and  after  shows  that  He  claimed. 

Dr.  Martineau,  while  not  disputing  the  stainlessness 
of  Jesus,  refuses  to  admit  that  He  constitutes  a  solitary 
type.  "  Those,"  he  says,  "  who  shrink  from  recognising 
in  Christ  a  human  impersonation  of  Divine  character 
often  press  upon  us  the  question,  whether,  then,  we  are 
to  regard  Him  as  a  unique  being,  differing  not  in 
degree  only,  but  also  in  kind,  from  the  just  and  wise  and 
saintly  of  every  age.  I  answer  by  a  parable :  he  that 
always  hits  the  mark  does  not  differ  in  kind  from  those 
whom  he  surpasses ;  yet  if  all  others  fall  short  of  this, 
he  is  unique.  In  truth,  the  whole  antithesis  between 
degree  and  kind,  borrowed  from  natural  history  and 
becoming  ever  fainter  even  there,  is  absolutely  empty 
and  unmeaning  when  transferred  to  the  sphere  of  moral 
life.  The  differences  of  which  the  conscience  takes 
cognisance  lie  entirely  among  the  inner  springs  of  action, 
as  ranged  upon  a  progressive  scale  of  relative  excellence: 
and  thus  admitting  of  comparison  and  depending  on  it, 
can  never  be  anything  else  but  matters  of  gradation  and 
intensity.  To  speak  of  them  as  belonging  to  distinct 
categories  or  orders  of  being,  is  to  declare  them  incom- 
mensurable, subject  to  no  common  measure,  and  there- 
fore to  deny  any  universal  moral  law.  .  .  .  We  can 
neither  deny  to  faithful,  heroic,  and  holy  men,  to  a 
Socrates,  a  Marcus  Aurelius,  a  Blaise  Pascal,  an  approach 

.  •*  Can  it  be  thought  that  Jesus  regarded  it  as  possible  for  the  ruler  to 
recognise  His  essential  divine  Sonship,  when  even  the  apostles  did  not  fully 
realise  it  during  His  earthly  life?  (see  below,  pp.  69,  131-4).  Besides,  the 
term  "God  "  in  the  absolute  sense  is  applicable  only  to  the  Father. 

3 


34  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ' s  [Lect. 

to  Christ  upon  the  same  line,  nor  claim  for  Him  any 
pre-eminence  that  removej  them  from  His  fellowship. 
But  neither  can  we  speak  otherwise  of  God  Himself. 
He  also,  with  all  the  infinitude  of  His  perfections,  is  still 
but  the  Father  of  Spirits,  and  on  the  side  of  moral  good- 
ness differing  from  His  children  only  in  degree."^ 

Surely  there  is  here  a  great  confusion  of  idea.  It  is 
unquestionable  that  moral  qualities — justice,  love,  pity — 
mean  the  same  thing  in  us  and  in  God :  otherwise  there 
could  not  be  one  moral  universe.  To  say  this  is  one 
thing,  but  it  is  quite  another  to  say  that  moral  pei'sonality 
is  the  same  in  both,  or  that  any  advance  in  goodness  will 
bring  us  nearer  to  the  self-consciousness  of  the  Abso- 
lutely Holy.  The  difference  between  Him  and  us  is  not 
one  of  "  gradation  "  or  "  intensity,"  but  of  essential  moral 
characteristic.  It  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  No  comparison 
can  be  instituted  between  us  upon  a  progressive  scale 
of  relative  excellence.  So  also  as  regards  Jesus.  His 
goodness,  indeed,  was  not  like  the  Father's,  original, 
self-contained  ;  but  human,  derivative,  sustained  by  the 
constant  reception  of  the  Spirit  bestowed  from  above. 
Yet,  though  human,  its  distinction  from  the  goodness  of 
other  men  was  not  that  of  the  greater  from  the  less.  It 
is  never  possible  for  the  best  of  men  to  feel  that  he 
absolutely  hits  the  white  even  in  his  noblest  act,  because 
of  the  ineradicable  sense  that  his  past  shortcomings  may 
in  an  incalculable  way  have  altered  his  course  or  blurred 
his  vision.  If  we  are  to  keep  to  Dr.  Martineau's  in- 
appropriate quantitative  simile,  and  represent  the 
maximum  as  one  hundred  points,  which  Jesus  makes, 
then,   instead   of  others   making   seventy  or   eighty,  and 

^  IIoiii  5  of  Thoii\;ht,  vol.  ii.  217-219. 


I.]  Moral  Self -Consciousness  35 

thus  only  falling  relatively  short,  they  do  not  even 
make  one  point,  never  do  anything  with  the  same  feeling 
that  He  consistently  had  of  a  duty  perfectly  fulfilled. 
Therefore  His  whole  moral  achievement  is  typically 
apart  from  theirs.^ 

It  is  this  isolation  of  Jesus,  relatively  to  the  future 
as  well  as  to  the  past  of  humanity,  that  renders  Him 
doubly  inexplicable  on  any  purely  naturalistic  theory  of 
development.  The  early  Hebrew  religion,  for  example, 
had  very  likely  for  its  background,  as  critical  research 
declares,  the  elemental  nature-religions  of  the  Semitic 
pastoral  peoples,  was  intermingled  with  prevailing  super- 
stitions, and  adopted  during  its  course,  as  raw  material, 
popular  customs,  festivals,  and  legends.  The  God  of 
Israel  had  at  first,  we  are  told,  the  same  tribal  character 
and  relation  as  the  deities  of  the  neighbouring  nations, 
and  faith  in  Him  did  not  exclude  polytheism.  This 
may  be  so,  but  no  one  has  ever  been  able  to  explain  by 
natural  and  normal  causes  how  it  was  that,  while  the 
religions  of  the  other  Semitic  tribes  continued  merely 
local,  sensuous,  and  hardly  ethical,  that  of  Israel  rose  to 
the  apprehension  of  a  holy  personal  God  who  stands 
above   nature.        It   is    not    enough    to    say,   Evolution. 

^  Dr.  Martineau  departs,  however,  in  his  latest  book,  Seat  of  Authority y 
from  this  representation  of  Jesus  as  actually  stainless,  and  falls  back  on  the 
exploded  interpretation  of  the  words  used  by  Jesus  to  the  ruler.  "  This 
condition,  *  without  sin,' is  not  to  be  pressed  out  of  its  relative  significance 
for  every  growing  mind  into  a  rigid  dogmatic  absolutism  ;  it  tells  simply  the 
impression  of  His  life  upon  its  witnesses,  without  contradicting  the  self-judgment 
which  felt  hurt  by  the  epithet  '  Good' ;"  and  he  speaks  of  Jesus'  "  suscepti- 
bility to  possible  repentance  and  consciousness  of  something  short  of  *  Good  '  " 
(p.  651).  Though  this  view  is,  as  has  been  shown,  incompatible  with  the  facts 
in  their  totality,  it  has  more  self-consistency  with  his  general  position  than  the 
attempt  made  in  the  Hours  of  Thought  to  retain  the  old  Socinian  idea  of 
Jesus'  sinlessness,  while  denying  that  He  constitutes  a  separate  moral  type. 


36  The  U^iiqueness  of  Chris fs  [Lect. 

What  were  the  factors  in  the  development,  operating 
within  this  one  little  section  of  the  Semitic  race,  where- 
by it  alone  gradually  advanced  till  it  reached  this  lofty 
spiritual  faith,  while  all  its  neighbours  wallowed  in  the 
slough  of  naturalism  ?  Schultz  tells  us,  after  the  most 
exhaustive  analysis,  that  no  mere  historical  explanation 
can  account  for  it,  or  make  it  more  than  partially  in- 
telligible ;  that  "  it  can  be  explained  only  by  revelation, 
that  is,  by  the  fact  that  God  raised  up  for  this  people 
men  whose  natural  susceptibilities  to  moral  and  religious 
truth,  developed  by  the  course  of  their  inner  and  outer 
lives,  enabled  them  to  understand  intuitively  the  will  of 
the  self-communicating  and  redeeming  God  regarding 
men,  and  to  possess  the  religious  truth  which  maketh 
free,  not  as  a  result  of  human  wisdom  and  intellectual 
labour,  but  as  a  power  pressing  in  on  the  soul  with 
irresistible  might."  ^ 

Precisely :  there  were  historical  conditions  and 
historical  laws  at  work ;  but  something  else  was  at 
work  also,  a  spiritual  factor  not  hitherto  existing  in 
human  experience,  but  blending  in  this  development 
with  what  was  present  already,  and  producing  in  the 
Hebrew  nation  a  unique  spiritual  result.  Regarded 
sub  specie  ceternitatis  it  was  itself  natural,  part  of  the 
ultimate  order  of  the  spiritual  universe ;  but  it  was  no 
more  evolved  from  the  forces  and  conditions  previously 
operating  in  humanity  than  the  animal  is  evolved  from 
the  inorganic. 

Yet,  just  as  the  animal  stage  when  once  reached  is 
kept,  so  this  new  spiritual  factor  having  once  entered 
humanity    remained    there,    continued    to    operate    and 

^  O.  T.  Theology^  vol.  i.  54. 


I.]  MoraC  Self-Consciottsness  37 

unfold  itself  in  ever  greater  measure.  The  divine 
communion  into  which  the  Jews  were  raised  formed  the 
starting-point  for  a  fuller  vision  of  God  in  future  genera- 
tions. It  became  an  abiding  element  in  the  further 
development  of  the  race.  With  Jesus  it  is  just  the 
reverse.  The  new  factor  whose  presence  is  attested  by 
His  moral  nature  has  in  no  subsequent  case  created  a 
similar  result.  If  His  personality  represents  a  new 
stage  in  man's  consciousness  of  God,  it  is  a  stage  which 
closes  with  Himself.  He  has  no  more  been  reproduced 
in  Christendom  than  He  was  anticipated  in  Judaism. 
There  is  a  double  break  in  the  continuity.  Naturalistic 
evolution  fails  to  account  for  Him  alike  in  connection 
with  what  precedes  and  with  what  follows  Him,  and  it 
is  the  latter  failure  which  is  fatal. 

Sometimes  we  conceal  this  from  ourselves  by  thinking 
of  Jesus  as  occupying  a  similar  position  in  the  religious 
sphere  to  that  which  Shakespeare  holds  in  the  intellectual. 
Evolution,  we  are  reminded,  is  not  at  all  inconsistent 
with  the  appearance  of  outstanding  personalities,  to  which 
subsequent  ages  present  no  parallel.  But  the  genius  that 
belongs  to  certain  men  in  different  departments  of  life, — 
in  war,  in  statesmanship,  in  poetry, — and  by  which  they 
soar  above  their  contemporaries  and  their  successors,  is 
simply  the  intensification  of  a  gift  or  gifts  possessed  by 
others.  Their  superiority  is  one  of  degree.  Christ's  is 
one  of  kind.  Neither  in  Socrates  nor  in  Pascal  is  there 
the  slightest  resemblance  to  the  quality  of  moral  nature 
that  Jesus  exhibited.  Those  who  have  most  absorbed 
His  spirit,  and  who,  on  the  principle  of  development, 
ought  certainly  to  show  some  sign  of  approximation  to 
Him,  realise  most  keenly  that  no  comparison  can  ever  be 


o 


8  The  Uniqueness  of  Christ's  [Lect. 


instituted  between  Him  and  them  "  upon  a  progressive 
scale  of  relative  excellence."  They  attain  His  peace,  but 
it  is  not  theirs,  as  it  is  His,  through  direct  fellowship  with 
God  ;  it  is  mediated  by  Him.  And  in  them  it  is  not,  as 
in  Him,  at  present  realised ;  it  is  implicit,  the  beginning 
and  pledge  of  a  complete  victory,  whose  time  is  not  yet. 
Nor,  when  that  time  comes,  in  the  mystery  of  the  Here- 
after, is  their  experience  one  with  His.  The  conscious- 
ness of  those  who  have  been  washed  from  their  sins  will 
be  eternally  different  from  that  of  Him  who,  through  all 
His  earthly  years,  remained  undefiled.  The  prodigal 
may  traverse  the  distance  that  separates  him  from  the 
saint,  but  no  conceivable  spiritual  progress  can  bring  the 
sinful  soul  to  the  consciousness  of  sinlessness.  Of  that 
consciousness  we  may  say,  Nascitui\  non  fit.  It  must 
exist  from  the  beginning;  when  lost,  it  cannot  be 
regained.^ 

While  Jesus  thus  presents  a  unique  type  of  goodness, 
yet  it  is  essentially  a  human  type.  There  are  some  who 
argue  that  because  He  lacks  one  element  everywhere 
present  in  humanity.  He  really  falls  out  of  its  fellowship, 
and  ceases  to  be  the  brother  of  men.  But  sin  is  not  an 
inherent  characteristic  of  human  nature  ;  it  is  an  intrusion. 
De  facto,  it  is  universal  ;  de  jure,  it  has  no  title  to  be 
there.  From  the  verdict  of  conscience  on  this  matter 
there  is  no  appeal.  We  may  be  unable  to  understand 
the  conditions  under  which  a  sinless  soul  develops, 
because  we  cannot  get  away  from  the  shadow  cast  by 
our  own  experience.  It  is  through  erring  and  repenting 
that  ive  pass  into  a  nobler  life,  and  a  fuller  vision  of  the 
divine  ;  yet   there  is  never  any  acquiescence  in  the  fault 

1  See  Note  5,  p.  3S8,  "Christ  and  Evolution." 


I.]  Moral  Self-Conscioitsness  39 

as  a  blessed  thing  in  itself,  or  as  anything  but  an  alien 
element  in  our  humanity.  What  we  recognise  as  indis- 
pensable to  a  life  of  goodness  truly  human  is,  that  it 
should  be  teachable,  receptive,  advancing  ;  that  it  should 
deepen  and  enlarge  with  every  fresh  form  of  experience 
and  unfolding  of  circumstance.  The  life  of  God  is 
eternally  complete,  and  His  holiness  incapable  of  increase. 
He  is  the  First  and  the  Last.  But  Christ's  life  on  earth 
had  the  developing  mark  of  humanity.  It  passed  through 
many  stages,  and  "  learned  obedience "  in  each.  He 
increased  in  wisdom,  taking  "  possession,  in  the  name  of 
His  Father,  of  the  several  domains  of  human  life  as  they 
opened  one  after  another  before  Him."  The  family  in 
Nazareth,  the  Jewish  nation,  mankind,  these  in  succes- 
sion appealed  to  Him  as  spheres  of  service.  Nor  was 
He  educated  merely  by  receptivity,  but  by  resistance. 
Though  for  the  most  part  His  moral  life  seems  to  unfold 
itself  calmly,  it  had  its  crises  of  self-searching  and  trial. 
The  suggestions  which  are,  no  doubt,  pictorially  treated 
in  the  Synoptic  account  of  the  Temptation  imply  just 
such  a  conflict  as  would  naturally  arise  at  the  beginning 
of  a  career  like  His.  His  alarm  at  Peter's  suggestion 
that  He  should  not  tread  the  path  of  suffering,  and  the 
quick  emphasis  of  His  rebuke,  betray  what  Dr.  A.  B. 
Davidson  does  not  scruple  to  call  '  His  weakest  point ' — 
regret  that  He  cannot  save  from  pain  the  hearts  that 
loved  Him.^  And  the  scene  which  all  subsequent  ages 
have  designated  "  the  Agony  "  tells  of  a  spiritual  struggle 
in  the  depths  of  His  being.  Now,  God  cannot  be  tempted 
with  evil ;  but  here  is  One  who  felt  the  attractions  of 
friendship,     the    bitterness    of   desertion  ;     whose    heart 

^  Hebrews,  p.  io8. 


40  Christ's  Moral  SelJ-Consciousness     [Lect.  i. 

glowed  with  unaffected  wonder  at  the  faith  of  the 
centurion,  and  burned  with  indignation  at  the  shameless 
hypocrisy  which  condemned  in  others  what  it  tolerated 
in  itself;  and  who  yet  so  carried  Himself  through  all 
these  shifting  emotions  of  the  soul  that  they  not  only 
never  impaired  the  balance  of  His  moral  nature,  but 
left  Him  the  richer  and  stronger  for  each  experience. 
Temptation,  indeed,  to  such  a  One  had  a  character  to  us 
unimaginable,  for  He  knew  nothing  of  those  surging 
evil  influences  out  of  far-back  hours  w^hich  do  so  much  to 
undermine  our  resisting  power  and  half  paralyse  our 
hopefulness.  But  none  the  less  is  the  goodness  which  is 
thus  built  up  emphatically  human.  It  is  daily  nourished 
from  hidden  sources  in  the  fellowship  of  the  Father,  and 
grows  in  strength  by  growing  in  dependence  and  sur- 
render. Christ's  freedom  from  stain  or  shortcoming  is 
not  the  destruction  of  His  humanity,  but  its  completion. 


LECTURE    II. 

CHRIST'S    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    AS 
INTERPRETED    BY    HIS    CLAIMS. 


41 


SYNOPSIS. 

Christ's  moral  self-consciousness — the  fundamental  fact. 

Just  because  unique,  the  interpretation  of  it  must  come  from  Himself. 

1.  His  finality  as  a  Teacher  of  God's  will. 

2.  His  decisive  pronouncements  on  individual  character. 

3.  Makes  attachment  to  Himself  imperative. 

4.  Claims  to  be  the  final  Arbiter  of  human  destinies. 

The  self-assertion  of  Jesus  incompatible  with  normal  human  goodness  :  His 
example  in  this  respect  cannot  be  imitated. 

"  The  Son  of  Man  "  :  its  double  reference  to  service  and  lordship. 
"The  Son"  of  the  Father. 

His  consciousness  of  Sonship  involves  a  transcendent  element  in  His  being. 
It  is  not  created  by  His  consciousness  of  Messiahship,  but   underlies  and 
determines  it. 

The  Fourth  Gospel  in  substantial  harmony  with  the  Synoptics  on  the  two 
main  points  : 

1.  His  relation  to  men. 

2.  His  relation  to  the  Father. 
The  Sayings  as  to  His  pre-existence. 

The  Johannine  authorship. 

Difficulty  regarding  the  Discourses,  though  sometimes  exaggerated,  yet  a  real 

one. 
The  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  not,  like  Luke,  a  compiler,  but  a  reproducer 

from  his  own  experience. 
Reads  the  beginning  of  Jesus'  ministry  in  the  light  of  the  end. 
The  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  historical  documents. 


42 


LECTURE    11. 

Christ's  Self-consciousness  as  interpreted  by 

His  Claims. 

The  unique  character  of  Christ's  moral  self-consciousness 
is  the  fundamental  fact  regarding  Him.  The  discussion 
of  it  is  not  complicated  by  the  problems  that  arise  in 
connection  with  His  teaching.  The  religious  doctrines 
or  ideas  of  a  great  teacher  have  to  be  placed  historically 
in  order  to  determine  their  comparative  originality,  and 
the  quality  and  value  of  the  contribution  he  has  made  to 
the  spiritual  knowledge  of  humanity.  Still  more,  the 
investigation  of  their  truth  or  accuracy  is  not  a  little 
affected  by  questions  of  local  or  temporal  colouring. 
How  far  was  the  speaker  influenced  by  inherited  tradi- 
tions, or  by  his  environment  ?  What  deductions  on 
these  grounds  have  to  be  made  from  his  doctrine,  so  as 
to  reach  what  is  permanent  and  universal  in  it  ?  These 
questions  have  a  peculiar  emphasis  in  Christ's  case,  just 
because  He  so  clearly  entered  into  a  line  of  spiritual 
succession,  and  affiliated  Himself  to  the  instructions  and 
prophecies  of  an  older  time.  The  complexity  that  thus 
arises,  so  far,  at  least,  as  it  affects  the  central  articles  of 
His  teaching,  is  not,  as  I  hope  to  show  later,  so  great  as 
has  been  frequently  affirmed.  But  it  exists,  and  it  is 
therefore    of   primary   moment  that   we  have  something 

43 


44  Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

which  is  not  open  to  minute  disputation,  which  does  not 
rest  on  isolated  phrases  or  acts,  but  which  is  involved  in 
any  rendering  we  give  to  the  life  of  Jesus  that  does 
adequate  or  approximate  justice  to  the  facts.  We  may, 
of  course,  a  priori  rule  out  the  possibility  of  such  an 
isolated  phenomenon  as  a  moral  consciousness  of  unbroken 
harmony  with  God  ;  but  to  do  so  is  neither  criticism  nor 
common  sense.  It  is  not  to  interpret  facts,  but  to  deny 
them  or  pass  them  by.  Treat  the  records  as  you  may, 
no  hypothesis  of  modification,  omission,  or  insertion  will 
ever  eliminate  this  distinctive  quality  from  Christ's 
character,  without  destroying  the  verisimilitude  of  the 
portraiture. 

But  Christ's  moral  self-consciousness  is  fundamental 
for  another  reason.  Religion  is  not  a  theory,  but  an 
experience.  To  use  the  words  of  Amiel,  it  is  a  "  life, 
mystical  in  its  root  and  practical  in  its  fruits,  a  communion 
with  God,  a  calm  and  deep  enthusiasm,  a  love  which 
radiates,  a  force  which  acts,  a  happiness  which  over- 
flows." ^  Its  aim  is  not  to  speak  great  things  of  God, 
and  of  what  He  is  or  can  be  to  His  children  ;  it  is  to 
make  these  things  a  reality  within  the  soul.  This  is  the 
object  of  all  religious  leaders  and  reformers ;  they  call 
men  to  enter  into  this  blessedness,  and  they  join  the 
company  of  seeking  and  aspiring  hearts.  But  is  the 
goal  they  make  for  more  than  a  glorious  but  unattainable 
dream  ?  They  have  themselves  no  inward  witness  of 
personal  triumph,  manifesting  itself  in  ways  by  which 
their  followers  can  be  assured  that  the  hope  does  translate 
itself  into  fact.  With  them  it  is  still  an  aspiration ;  with 
Christ   it   is  a  possession.      Therefore    His   message   has 

^Journal,  vol.  i.  224. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  45 

behind  it  the  guarantee  that  He  knows  the  way  to  the 
secret  places  of  an  unfathomable  peace.  It  is  obvious 
that,  standing  apart  as  He  does  in  His  spiritual  achieve- 
ment, it  is  not  possible  for  us  to  interpret  and  explain 
Him,  as  we  may  explain  others.  We  have  no  analogies 
of  experience  to  apply.  We  can  neither  tell  how  such  a 
lonely  consciousness  could  have  grown  up,  nor  what  it 
means  for  our  life,  now  that  it  is  there  before  us.  He 
must  interpret  Himself ;  show  us  by  the  attitude  He 
takes  up,  in  His  words  and  deeds  and  unexpected 
silences,  why  He  is  there,  and  what  His  relation  to  us  is. 
We  can  see,  indeed,  that  in  some  respects^  He  has  realised 
the  very  ideal  of  humanity  which  we  cherish  and  long  to 
reach  ;  but  He  has  not  reached  it  along  our  lines,  and  so 
the  inspiration  of  His  life  is  enfeebled  by  a  doubt.  What 
further  significance  He  has  for  humanity  as  a  pledge  of 
spiritual  power  or  joy,  can  only  be  known  through  His 
self-manifestation. 

That  self  -  manifestation  takes  many  forms,  and 
naturally  the  first  aspect  in  which  we  have  to  consider 
it  is  the  exceptional  position  which  He  assumes  as  a 
teacher  of  God's  will,  relatively  to  the  past  of  Judaism. 
It  is  perfectly  plain  that  the  law  and  the  prophets  pos- 
sessed for  Him  a  divine  authority.  While  He  strenuously 
repudiated  the  Rabbinic  rules  and  glosses  as  the  com- 
mandments of  men,  yet  what  was  known  as  the  Mosaic 
code,  even  in  its  ritual  part  had  for  Him  its  place  in  the 
order  of  God's  revelation.  There  is  one  saying  of  His 
in  which  this  view  is  affirmed  with  the  strongest  emphasis, 
"  Verily  I  say  unto  you.  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass  away, 

1  That  there  were  other  quahties  in  His  character  not  belonging  to  a  purely 
human  ideal,  see  below,  pp.  55-60. 


46  Chris  fs  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lcct. 

one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law 
till  all  things  be  accomplished."  ^  The  genuineness  of 
these  words  has  been  challenged,  but  upon  purely 
arbitrary  and  a  priori  grounds.  The  connection  in 
which  they  appear  shows  that  He  attributes  permanence, 
not  to  the  literal  form,  but  to  the  inner  content  of  the 
commandments  of  the  law;  because  He  regards  the  least 
of  them  as  having  a  value  as  the  symbol  of  a  spiritual 
truth,  which  alone  would  abide.^  In  the  deepest  sense 
He  claims,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  them.  Yet  how 
free  is  His  handling  of  those  very  commandments,  not- 
withstanding their  historic  sacredness.  He  reserves  to 
Himself  the  title  of  pronouncing  what  their  essential 
meaning  is,  of  translating  them  from  the  imperfection  of 
the  letter  into  the  fulness  of  the  divine  intention.  It  is 
He  who  decides  what  shall  disappear  and  what  remain. 
He  endorses,  modifies,  abrogates,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  insists  that  the  principles  which  He  lays  down 
cannot  in  their  turn  be  abrogated.  He  is  never  con- 
fused or  uncertain  amid  all  the  multiplicity  of  details  in 
the  Jewish  law ;  each  falls  into  its  place,  and  He  passes 
judgment  on  it  with  the  accent  of  absolute  assurance, 
"  Verily  I  say  unto  you."  It  is  not  the  tone  of  one  who 
believes,  but  of  one  who  knows)  who  shares  the  full 
thought  of  God  towards  man,  and  therefore  speaks  truths 
which  no  time  can  supersede.  The  "  authority  "  which 
even  at  an  early  stage ^  of  His  ministry  the  people  felt 
to  attach  to  His  teaching,  sprang,  not  merely  from  the 
self-witnessing  character  of  the   message,   but  from   the 

^  Malt.  V.  iS. 

^  Beyschlag,  N.T.    Theology^  vol.  i.    pp.    iiO;    iii  ;  Bruce,  Kingdom  of 
God,  pp.  64-67. 
^  Mark  i.  22. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  47 

transparent  confidence  with  which  He  delivered  it.  And 
He  adopts  the  same  attitude  towards  the  prophets  as 
towards  the  law.  In  His  parable  of  the  Husbandmen, 
they  are  but  servants  whom  God  has  sent ;  He  is  the 
Son ;  and  so  God's  final  appeal  to  His  people.  He 
comes  in  a  long  succession  of  messengers,  but  He  does 
not  so  much  belong  to  it  as  conclude  and  complete  it. 
When  we  remember  the  reverence  which  all  pious  Jews 
had  for  the  great  souls  raised  up  in  old  times  to  be  God's 
spokesmen,  we  can  understand  the  strength  of  inward 
evidence  which  led  Jesus  to  assert  for  Himself  so  supreme 
a  place  and  function.  I  am  not  here  dealing  with  the 
question  whether  He  claimed  to  fulfil  or  realise  in  His 
own  person  and  life  the  demands  and  hopes  of  Jewish 
law  and  prophecy,  but  with  the  finality  which  He 
assumes  to  belong  to  His  teaching-  about  God  :  and  this 
assumption  involves  the  consciousness,  not  only  of  a 
unique  relation  towards  God,  but  of  a  vocation  towards 
Humanity,  which  admits  of  no  parallel  or  repetition. 

Quite  as  remarkable  is  the  decisiveness  with  which 
Jesus  pronounces  upon  the  characters  of  individuals. 
He  never  once  stands  puzzled  and  helpless,  as  we  con- 
tinually do,  before  the  problems  presented  by  other  lives. 
He  seizes  the  solution  by  instinct,  and  issues  a  command 
of  personal  duty  as  if  there  were  no  protest  or  appeal 
possible.  And  He  is  always  doing  it ;  not  on  supreme 
occasions  only,  or  in  seasons  of  special  illumination 
such  as  visit  the  noblest  souls  at  times.  All  hours  are 
the  same  for  Him.  His  insight  does  not  come  from  His 
being  exalted  above  Himself:  it  is  His  normal  gift.  It 
is  no  surer  in  crises  that  might  have  been  anticipated  by 
ordinary  foresight  than  in  moments  of  surprise.      At  each 


48  Christ's  Self-Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

step  men  press  forward  with  cries  for  help  or  guidance, 
with  captious  queries  or  objections ;  and  His  replies  are 
not  so  much  the  answer  to  an  appeal  as  the  reading 
of  a  life.  He  disposes  of  them  ;  enjoins  upon  one  imme- 
diate surrender,  "  Follow  Me,"  but  forbids  another  who 
desired  to  follow  Him,  and  charges  him  to  return  to  his 
home  and  friends.^  That  Jesus  should  constantly  deliver 
such  personal  verdicts,  to  the  extent  of  imposing  the 
most  testing  sacrifices  on  reluctant  or  half-reluctant  souls, 
is  simply  inconceivable,  unless  He  bore  the  indisputable 
consciousness  of  being  called  to  this  unique  task  and  of 
possessing  for  it  unique  powers.^  Sometimes  this  extra- 
ordinary note  of  authority  is  lost  or  dulled  for  us  by  the 
graciousness  which  we  also  feel  to  pervade  His  inter- 
course with  men.  But  there  is  no  incompatibility  between 
them.  The  grace  lay  in  the  whole  character  and  purpose 
of  His  message,  but  the  authority  belonged  to  Him  as 
the  one  bearer  of  it,  without  whom  it  would  have  had  no 
meaning  at  all.  To  forget  this  is  to  commit  the  same 
mistake  as  is  done  by  those  who  turn  Christ's  brotherli- 
ness  into  a  friendly  geniality,  and  pass  by  the  moral 
strenuousness  and  sternness  which  lies  at  the  heart  of 
His  Gospel,  and  is  the  indispensable  prerequisite  of  its 
restorative  power. 

This  assumption  of  a  title  to  dispose  of  others  is  still 
more  visible  when  He  passes  judgment  on  their  moral 
state  before  God.  Again  and  again  He  declares  to 
them  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins.  Here,  too,  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  the  matter  that  He  is  dealing  with  indi- 
viduals.      For    there    is    a    sense   in   which    His   Church 

^  Luke  ix.  57-62,  viii.  38,  39.     See  latter  part  of  Note  13,  p.  398. 
^  Cf.  Dcnncy,  Studies  in  7'hcology,  p.  29. 


ri.]  mterpreted  by  His  Claims  49 

claims  the  right  of  pronouncing  absolution  to  the  penitent. 
But  she  does  not  decide  absolutely  who  the  penitent  are, 
in  this  case  or  in  that.  An  earnest  Christian  may  indeed 
in  the  name  of  Christ  feel  warranted  in  assuring  a 
troubled  and  humble  soul  that  God's  pardon  rests  upon  it. 
But  he  does  this  because  of  the  indications  which  he  thinks 
he  finds  of  true  repentance ;  it  is  an  inference,  amounting 
it  may  be  to  high  probability,  but  at  the  best  to  no  more 
than  moral  certainty.  Moreover,  he  does  not  reach  this 
conviction  immediately :  it  forms  itself  gradually,  as  the 
facts  of  the  character  he  is  judging  unfold  themselves  : 
and  no  matter  how  sincere  the  repentance  appears  to  be 
in  the  first  agony  of  awakened  guilt  and  sorrow,  he  has 
to  wait  till  it  seems  to  prove  itself  genuine  by  subsequent 
amendment  and  consecration.  But  Jesus  speaks  the 
word  of  absolution  at  once,  to  those  who  have  never 
crossed  His  path  before :  to  those  in  whose  case  there 
were  no  indubitable  signs,  recognised  by  others,  of  a  true 
penitence :  and  He  speaks  it,  not  with  moral,  but  with 
absolute  certainty.  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  ;  "  "  thy  faith 
hath  saved  thee."^  This,  if  it  is  anything,  is  substantially 
a  claim  to  read  the  heart,  to  proclaim  God's  estimate  of 
the  character,  as  it  can  only  be  done  by  Him  who  alone 
truly  knows  the  Father  and  the  Father's  thoughts  of  His 
children.^ 

In  the  case  of  the  paralytic,  Christ  defends  Himself 
from  the  charge  of  blasphemy  in  pronouncing  forgiveness, 
by  replying  to  the  objectors,  "  Whether  is  easier  to  say 
to  the  sick  of  the  palsy.  Thy  sins  are  forgiven,  or  to  say. 
Arise,  and  take  up  thy  bed  and  walk  ?  But  that  ye  may 
know  that  the  Son   of  Man   hath  authority  on   earth  to 

^  Matt.  ix.  2  ;  Luke  vii.  50.  2  q<^    M^zXX.  xi.  27. 

4 


50  Christ's  Self-Conscioicsness  as  [Lect. 

forgive  sins,  He  saith  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  Arise,  take 
up  thy  bed  and  go  unto  thy  house."  ^  Dr.  Martineau 
renders  the  meaning  thus :  ^^Si?is  in  heaven  {i.e.  in  their 
spiritual  aspect),  whose  moral  heinousness,  relative  to  the 
secret  conscience,  is  measurable  only  to  the  Searcher  of 
hearts,  are  certainly  reserved  for  the  mercy  of  God  alone. 
But  sins  on  earth,  in  their  temporal  expression  by  visita- 
tions of  incapacity  and  suffering,  He  has  from  of  old 
permitted  His  human  prophets  to  remit;  and  when  such 
a  Son  of  Man  takes  pity  on  a  stricken  brother,  what 
matters  it  whether  he  goes  up  to  the  sentence  and  pro- 
nounces it  thus  far  reduced,  saying,  *  Herein,  the  sin  is 
forgiven,'  or  whether  he  goes  down  to  the  prison  doors, 
and  opening  them  bids  the  captive  *  Arise,  and  go  to  his 
house  '  ?  "  ^  What,  then,  did  Christ's  absolution  refer  to  ? 
What  was  the  spiritual  benefit  bestowed  by  His  pardon? 
If  He  in  no  way  conveyed  to  the  paralytic  the  assurance 
of  the  divine  favour,  then  the  remission  was  not  of  the 
sin,  but  merely  of  its  temporal  expression  in  suffering. 
Would  Christ  have  alarmed  the  suspicions  of  the  scribes 
and  incurred  the  charge  of  blasphemy,  when  He  intended 
by  the  phrase  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee "  to  say 
nothing  more  than  that  He  had  authority  to  cure,  which 
was  not  in  question  ?  Manifestly  He  meant  something 
very  real  as  regards  the  man's  own  sense  of  guilt.  The 
phrase  "  on  earth "  does  not  belong  to  sins,  but  to  the 
forgiveness  of  them,  or  the  authority  to  forgive  them  :^ 
and  even  if  it  were  otherwise,  surely  it  is  a  grotesque 
view  which  by  contrasting  "  sins  on  earth  "  with  "  sins  in 
heaven  "  would   empty  the  phrase  "  sins  on  earth  "  of  all 

^  Matt.  ix.  4-6.  ^  Seat  of  AuihoHi}',  p.  345,  n. 

^  Meyer,  Comm.  in  loc 


II.]  mterpreted  by  His  Claims  51 

its  spiritual  content.  What  meaning  would  then  attach 
to  Christ's  similar  declaration  of  pardon  in  the  case  of 
one  like  the  "  woman  of  the  city,"  where  no  remission 
took  place  of  the  "  temporal  expression  "  or  penalty  of 
the  sin  ? 

Professor  Bruce,  on  the  other  hand,  regards  Christ's 
claim  to  forgive  as  directed  against  Pharisaic  notions. 
"  The  Pharisees  viewed  God's  relation  to  sin  from  the 
side  of  His  majesty ;  Jesus,  on  the  contrary,  viewed  it 
from  the  side  of  His  grace.  God,  He  says  to  His 
critics,  is  not  such  as  you  imagine — severe,  slow  to  for- 
give, and  jealous  of  His  prerogative ;  He  is  good  and 
ready  to  forgive,  and  has  no  desire  to  monopolise  the 
privilege  of  forgiving.  He  is  willing  that  it  should  be 
exercised  by  all  on  earth  in  whom  dwells  His  own  spirit ; 
and  My  right  to  forgive  rests  on  this,  that  I  am  a  sym- 
pathetic friend  of  the  sinful,  full  of  the  grace  and  charity 
of  heaven."^  What  is  here  said  of  the  spirit  of  Christ's 
judgment  is  said  admirably.  But  is  there  anything  in 
the  Synoptic  account  which  remotely  suggests  that  Jesus 
is  speaking  as  a  type  of  spiritual  humanity,  and  vindi- 
cating, not  only  for  Himself,  but  for  all  who  may  share 
His  sympathetic  spirit,  a  title  to  pronounce  forgiveness  ? 
Is  it  not  clear  that  He  takes  the  scribes'  question  as 
referring  to  Himself  alone,  from  the  way  in  which  He 
seeks  to  prove  to  them  His  right  to  pronounce  forgive- 
ness "  by  visibly  demonstrating  His  right  to  pronounce 
upon  the  man  another  Divine  blessing"^?  From  such 
an  argument  we  may  at  least  draw  the  inference  that  He 
affirms  His  authority  to  be  as   complete  and  as  excep- 

*  Kingdom  of  God,  p.  1 74. 

'^  Wendt,  Teaching  of  Jesus,  vol.  1.  ?i  1,  //. 


52  Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

tional  in  the  spiritual  sphere  as  He  shows  it  to  be  in  the 
natural.  The  central  significance  of  Christ's  answer  lies, 
not  in  His  possession  of  a  quality  which  He  shares  with 
others,  and  which  it  is  their  duty  to  strive  to  attain, 
but  in  the  peculiar  title  possessed  by  Himself  alone  to 
pronounce  forgiveness  of  sins.  Nor  does  history  or 
experience  teach  us  that  any  of  His  followers,  however 
truly  they  may  cherish  His  spirit,  approach  His  confident 
assurance  in  pronouncing  forgiveness  on  individuals,  any 
more  than  they  approach  His  consciousness  of  unbroken 
harmony  with  God.  Whatever  meaning  be  attributed 
here  to  the  term  "  Son  of  Man,"  it  cannot  be  divested  of 
a  uniquely  personal  reference.  The  best  comment  on 
Christ's  words  is  that  of  Bengel,  "  Coelestem  ortum  hie 
sermo  sapit." 

Again,  He  makes  loyalty  and  attachment  to  Himself 
the  first  duty  of  man,  and  the  condition  of  the  spiritual 
blessing  He  has  come  to  proclaim :  "  He  that  loveth 
father  or  mother  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me."^ 
"  Whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  My  sake  and  the 
Gospel's  shall  save  it."^  Some  have  argued  that  in  thus 
conjoining  His  own  name  with  His  Gospel,  He  indicates 
clearly  enough  that  it  is  the  Gospel  or  message  which  is 
the  real  object  of  attachment  for  men,  and  that  the 
reference  to  Himself  is  a  personification,  meaning  only 
that  He  is  the  bearer  of  it.  But  His  relation  to  His 
message  is  not  of  this  accidental  character.  His  right 
to  declare  it  is  based  on  a  unique  personality,  on  His 
separate  and  unshared  consciousness  of  communion  with 
the  Father:  it  is  a  function  belonging  essentially  to  Him 
and  no  other.      And  this  very  consciousness  of  His  forms, 

'  Malt.  X.  37.  2  Mark  viii.  35. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Clairns  53 

so  to  speak,  the  heart  of  the  message.  For  His  preach- 
ing from  beginning  to  end  is  a  proclamation  of  salvation. 
It  is  not  simply  a  doctrine  of  a  higher  and  more  pene- 
trating righteousness  than  that  taught  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. That  in  itself,  however  emphatic  as  a  revelation 
of  the  holiness  without  which  no  man  can  see  the  Lord, 
would  be  a  sentence  of  despair.  But  Christ's  message  is 
a  word  of  emancipation  :  it  is  a  doctrine  of  grace,  which 
at  once  includes  and  fulfils  the  new  demand  of  an  inner 
and  complete  righteousness.  It  can  only  be  this,  if  it 
contains  a  spiritual  dynamic,  whereby  the  oppressed 
heart  is  quickened  and  renewed,  and  feels  within  it  the 
promise  and  potency  of  the  perfect  service  of  God.  And 
Christ  pledges  this  power  to  men  in  His  Gospel,  because 
He  is  not  only  conscious  that  He  possesses  it  as  no  one 
else  does,  but  that  it  belongs  to  Him  supremely  to 
mediate  it  to  others.  Thus  His  message  is  not  something 
which  can  be  severed  from  His  personality.  When  so 
divorced,  it  loses  its  innermost  characteristic.  The  con- 
duct of  those  who  sought  His  help,  and  to  whom  He 
says  so  often,  "  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,"  is,  as  has 
been  well  said,^  at  bottom  a  faith  in  Christ;  nor  does 
the  elementary  conception  they  had  of  their  relation  to 
Him  alter  the  fact  that  it  was  just  this  trustful  attach- 
ment to  Himself  that  He  recognised  and  rewarded. 
It  constituted  the  medium  through  which  alone  the 
victorious  spiritual  strength  which  dwelt  in  Him  became 
the  guarantee  of  their  triumph. 

The  assumption  of  such  a  supremacy  in  the  spiritual 
world  cannot  be  an  incidental  or  temporary  thing.  He 
who  is  indispensable  in  one  case  is  necessary  in  all.      If 

^  Bcyschlat^,  N.T,  Theology^  vol.  i.  p.  143. 


54  Christ's  Seif-Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

He  is  entitled  to  stand  between  God  and  any  soul,  and 
insist  that  He  alone  can  mediate  to  it  divine  fellowship 
and  peace,  it  must  be  on  the  ground  of  an  inherent  right 
which  makes  Him  the  Lord  of  ^/Z  souls.  It  is  only  when 
we  realise  what  is  here  involved  that  we  cease  to  be 
astonished  at  His  startling  claim  to  be  the  final  Judge  of 
men  and  Arbiter  of  their  destinies.  Whatever  pictorial 
elements  exist  in  the  eschatology  of  the  Gospels,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  for  Jesus  there  was  a  point  in  the 
future  when  the  significance  of  the  world's  history  shall 
be  laid  bare  and  a  seal  set  on  the  moral  value  of  each 
human  life.  That  day  will  be  pre-eminently  the  day  of 
revelation,  the  bringing  to  light  of  the  secret  realities 
that  make  men  what  they  are ;  and  Christ  tells  us  that 
He  is  the  Revealer.  It  is  His  presence  that  will 
illuminate  and  interpret  each  character  to  itself;  it  is 
His  estimate  that  will  decide  the  issue.  Nor  is  this  a 
claim  put  forth  by  Him  merely  on  a  single  occasion  or 
in  doubtful  terms  of  imagery  ;  it  is  reiterated  in  various 
forms  but  with  unvarying  emphasis.  Whenever  He 
speaks  of  the  Future  Judgment,  He  Himself  occupies  the 
central  place.  In  that  day  He  shall  say  to  those  who 
falsely  called  Him  Lord,  Lord,  "  I  never  knew  you." 
"  The  Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  the  glory  of  His  Father, 
and  then  shall  He  render  unto  every  man  according  to 
his  deeds."  That  He  should  be  ashamed  of  men  in  that 
day,  will  be  their  sufficient  condemnation.  He  shall 
open  and  close  the  door  of  the  eternal  marriage  feast. 
"  He  shall  sit  on  the  throne  of  His  glory,  and  before  Him 
shall  be  gathered  all  the  Gentiles ;  and  He  shall  separate 
them  one  from  another."^      We  are  not   here  discussing 

^  Matt.  vii.  22,  23,  xvi.  27  ;  Mark  viii.  38  ;  Malt.  x\v.  10,  12,  31,  32. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  55 

the  moral  possibility  or  rationality  of  the  ultimate  sepa- 
ration of  souls,  nor  the  principle  that  determines  and 
vindicates  acceptance  or  rejection.^  What  we  are  dealing 
with  at  present  is  simply  the  fact  of  such  a  Judgment 
as  indubitably  testified  by  Christ,  and  the  light  thrown 
upon  the  uniqueness  of  His  personality  by  the  confident 
assertion  that  it  is  His  alone  to  test  and  to  arbitrate. 
Professor  Seeley^  does  not  exaggerate  when  he  declares 
that  to  deny  that  Christ  claimed  the  office  of  Judge  of 
mankind  is  possible  only  to  those  who  altogether  deny 
the  credibility  of  the  Gospels.  For  not  only  is  the  fact 
attested  by  numerous  sayings  that  have  every  conceiv- 
able mark  of  genuineness,  but  it  is  in  line  with  those 
other  characteristics  we  have  discussed ;  with  Christ's 
finality  as  the  Revealer  of  God  to  men,  with  His  as- 
sumption of  the  right  to  control  the  ordering  of  their 
lives,  to  forgive  them  in  God's  name,  to  be  the  one 
Mediator  to  them  of  divine  life  and  peace.  The  univer- 
sality of  relationship  and  authority,  which  is  asserted  by 
His  claim  to  be  the  Judge  of  all  human  souls,^  is  present 
as  truly,  though  implicitly,  in  each  of  these  demands. 
They  are  but  different  expressions  of  a  Personality  which 
in  every  phase  of  its  self-manifestation  struck  the  same 
dominant  note ;  nor  is  the  imperiousness  less  in  the 
sphere  of  grace  than  of  judgment.  He  who  is  the  First, 
as  alone  able  to  mediate  the  divine  life  to  men,  cannot 
but  be  the  Last  as  the  arbiter  of  their  fitness  for  the 
final  Kingdom. 

These  supreme    offices,  so  multiform   and   pervasive, 

^  See  Lecture  IX. 
"  Ecce  Homo,  p.  39. 

^  On  Wendt's  view  of  the  sectional  character  of  Christ's  Judgment,  see 
below,  p.  345,  ;/. 


56  Christ' s  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

which  Christ  assigns  to  Himself  cannot  be  explained 
away  by  any  Oriental  figurativeness  in  the  phraseology. 
They  involve  an  attitude  of  soul  towards  God  and  man 
which  would  be  incompatible  with  veracity  in  any  other 
than  He.  They  rise  naturally  out  of  a  background  of 
consciousness  which  is  not  itself  normal ;  and  therefore 
the  attempt  to  eliminate  them  does  not  leave  us  in  His 
case  a  simple  ideal  type  of  human  goodness.  He  is 
penetrated  with  a  profound  sense  of  His  own  greatness, 
and  He  constantly  shows  it.  He  upbraids  the  Jews  with 
their  demand  for  a  sign  accrediting  His  mission,  in  sad 
contrast  to  the  Queen  of  the  South  who  eagerly  listened 
to  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  ;  "  and,  behold,  a  greater  than 
Solomon  is  here."  And  again,  "  I  say  unto  you  that 
One  greater  than  the  Temple  is  here."^  Or  take  the 
questions  which  He  addressed  to  the  disciples  near 
Caesarea  Philippi — "  Who  do  men  say  that  I  am  ? " 
— "  Who  do  ye  say  that  I  am  ?  "  Do  not  these  words 
suggest  to  us  a  somewhat  disagreeable  self-consciousness, 
an  eager  desire  for  personal  recognition  ?  Is  there  any 
feeling  which  is  more  fatal  than   this  to  what  we  regard 

^  Matt.  xii.  42,  47.  Cf.  xxvi.  1 1,  "Ye  have  the  poor  always  with  you  ; 
but  Me  ye  have  not  always."  "  The  life  of  Jesus  Himself,''  says  T.  H.  Green, 
"was,  if  the  expression  may  be  allowed,  an  absolutely  original  one.  .  .  . 
Whether  Son  of  God  or  Son  of  Man,  He  was  so  by  a  direct  title  of  His  own, 
not,  as  His  followers  were,  by  a  mediated  heritage.  As  the  Jews  said  of  Him, 
'He  bare  record  of  Himself.'"  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  167.  Dr.  Martineau 
recognises  {Scat  of  Authority,  pp.  581,  582)  that  expressions  of  self-assertion, 
like  those  quoted  above,  blend  very  ill  with  the  highest  kind  of  goodness  that 
is  merely  human  ;  and  so  he  attributes  them,  not  to  Jesus,  but  to  the  retro- 
spective interpretation  of  the  Church.  This  reading  back  must  have  been 
pretty  thorough,  for  the  same  note  of  intense  self-consciousness  permeates  the 
entire  story,  and  is  present  in  incident  as  well  as  phrase.  If  Jesus  never 
assumed  this  tone  at  all,  one  can  only  say  that  the  early  Church  achieved  a 
miracle  of  verisimilitude  in  its  reconstruction  of  His  life.  "  Crcdat  Judaius 
ApcUa." 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  57 

as  the  noblest  character?  There  are  quahties  such  as 
hypocrisy,  altogether  irreconcilable  with  virtue,  destruct- 
ive of  it  in  every  sense  ;  there  are  others,  and  obtrusive 
self-appreciation  is  one,  irreconcilable  with  the  highest 
virtue.  We  are  thrilled  by  Danton's  cry — "  Que  mon 
nom  soit  fletri ;  que  la  France  soit  libre  " ;  let  my  name 
be  blighted;  let  France  be  fi^ee^ — because  it  strikes  the 
note  of  self-forgetfulness.  Whether  genuine  for  him  or 
not,  we  say,  *  That  is  the  tone  in  which  men  should 
speak ;  this  indifference  to  the  personal  interest,  this 
absorption  in  the  service  of  a  cause.'  And  so  we  love 
to  see  a  great  man  as  the  final  shadows  deepen  upon 
him,  rise  above  the  natural  longing  for  a  secure  place  in 
men's  hearts,  and  commit  himself  and  his  work  calmly 
to  the  keeping  and  appointment  of  God.  Wordsworth, 
who  with  all  his  genius  and  lofty  consecration  was  only 
too  conscious  of  the  value  of  his  message  for  humanity, 
passes  at  last  into  this  higher  mood.  "  It  is  indeed  a 
deep  satisfaction,"  he  writes  near  the  close  of  life,  "  to 
hope  and  believe  that  my  poetry  will  be,  while  it  lasts,  a 
help  to  the  cause  of  virtue  and  truth,  especially  among 
the  young.  As  to  myself,  it  seems  now  of  little  moment 
how  long  I  may  be  remembered.  When  a  man  pushes 
off  in  his  little  boat  into  the  great  seas  of  Infinity  and 
Eternity,  it  surely  signifies  little  how  long  he  is  kept  in 
sight  by  watchers  from  the  shore."  ^  He  is  as  deeply 
persuaded  as  ever  that  he  has  been  entrusted  with  the 
utterance  of  truths  which  fortify  and  wisely  chasten  the 
spirits  of  men  ;  but  he  does  not  think  that  his  utterance 
of  them  is  indispensable   to   their  power  and  prevalence, 

^  See  Carlyle,  French  Revohifion,  vol.  iii.  p.  115. 
"  F.  W.  II.  Myers,  Wordsworth,  p.  182. 


58  Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

still  less  that  they  will  be  lost  unless   identified  with  his 
personality. 

How  widely  apart  and  alien  is  Christ's  manner  of 
thought.  At  the  departing  hour  He  observes  a  farewell' 
feast  with  the  disciples,  and  in  the  most  solemn  form 
charges  them  to  continue  the  observance  as  a  com- 
memoration of  Himself  and  His  relation  to  them.  "  Do 
this  in  remembrance  of  Me."  ^  Doubtless  it  is  by 
fellowship  with  a  person,  not  by  the  acceptance  of 
principles,  that  the  spiritual  nature  is  regenerated  and 
built  up ;  and  to  allow  those  who  have  been  a  living 
embodiment  of  high  moral  power  to  fall  into  oblivion,  is 
to  reject  a  chief  means  of  grace.  So  it  may  be  said, 
Christ's  words  are  but  an  application  of  this  law.  Yes, 
but  it  is  the  application  of  it  to  Himself  which  makes 
all  the  difference.  It  might  be  necessary  for  the  welfare 
of  the  disciples  that  they  should  remember  Him.  It  was 
quite  another  thing  for  Him  to  insist  on  this  necessity. 
He  does  not  in  the  least  disguise  that  He  wants  men  to 
form  judgments  on  Him,  but  it  is  not  for  His  sake,  but 
for  their  own.  That  they  should  think  rightly  of  Him 
was  a  matter,  in  His  view,  of  essential  moment  for  their 
deepest  life  before   God.^      We   talk   too  easily  of  Christ 

^  Luke  xxii.  19.  Luke  alone  among  the  Synoptics  gives  these  words, 
which  Paul's  account  (i  Cor.  xi.  24,  25)  also  contains.  As  they  are  wanting 
in  Matthew  and  Mark,  it  is  held  by  many  that  they  were  not  spoken  by  Jesus 
at  the  Last  Supper.  But  see,  on  the  other  hand,  Beyschlag,  N.  T.  Theology^ 
i.  177,  and  Godet,  St.  Luke,  in  loc.  That  Christ  meant  the  observance  to  be 
perpetual  is  beyond  question.  **  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  says  Dr.  Bruce, 
"that  a  rite,  capable  of  giving  symbolic  utterance  to  so  much  meaning,  was 
intended  to  be  repeated.  .  .  .  To  perform  so  pathetic  an  act  once  was  to 
make  it  a  standing  institution"  {Kingdom  of  God,  p.  251).  That  Jesus 
performed  it  at  all  is  the  significant  thing  as  a  revelation  of  His  self- 
consciousness. 

^  Sec  Note  6,  p.  391,  '*  Dean  Stanley  on  Christ's  self-suppression." 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  59 

as  our  great  Example.  The  peculiarity  of  His  attitude 
is  that  it  cannot  be  imitated.  Here  is  a  note  we  cannot 
sound.  It  is  as  if  He  said,  I  am  first:  there  is  no 
second. 

Nor  is  this  all.  When  we  demand  self-forgetfulness 
as  the  condition  of  goodness,  we  are  but  echoing  Christ's 
words.  It  is  He  who  has  made  this  demand  imperative 
in  us.  Yet  He  points  to  Himself  as  an  instance  of  self- 
suppression  at  the  very  time  when  He  is  authoritatively 
affirming  His  own  pre-eminence.  "  Take  My  yoke  upon 
you,  and  learn  of  Me;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart."  ^ 
He  forbids  His  disciples  to  accept  titles  of  honour,  to  be 
called  Rabbi  or  Master ;  "  for  One  is  your  Master,  even 
the  Christ."  ^  What  an  assumption  lies  here.  Surely  a 
strange  way  of  recommending  lowliness,  in  the  tones  of 
absoluteness  and  autocracy.  Humanity  is  pretty  well 
agreed  that  there  are  few  things  more  offensive  than  the 
humility  that  dwells  upon  its  own  excellence.  It  is  also 
pretty  well  agreed  that  the  life  of  Jesus  is  the  supreme 
ideal  of  human  character.  When  we  put  these  two  facts 
together,  and  consider  that  He  whom  men  take  as  the 
loftiest  moral  type  of  the  race  emphasised  His  own 
lowliness  and  self-sacrifice,  we  feel  that  there  were 
elements  in  Him  that  cannot  possibly  blend  in  a  merely 
human    consciousness,    and    that    irresistibly   suggest    a 

1  Matt.  xi.  29.  Dr.  Bruce  {With  Open  Face,  p.  146)  argues  as  against 
Dr.  Martineau,  that  the  words,  "I  am  meek,"  etc.,  are  "not  self-eulogy,  but 
self-description.  They  describe  a  mood,  rather  than  lay  claim  to  a  virtue.^'' 
I  confess  they  seem  to  me  to  express  not  a  passing  mood,  but  a  permanent 
characteristic  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus.  Nor  even  as  the  utterance  of  a 
mood  do  they  strike  one  as  harmonising  with  the  normal  ideal  of  humanity. 

"  Matt,  xxiii.  8,  10.  The  phrase  "even  the  Christ"  occurs  only  in  the 
loth  verse.  It  is  an  interpolation  in  the  8th,  though  plainly  implied.  Bruce, 
Kingdom  of  God,  pp.  153,  154. 


6o  Christ's  Se/f- Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

higher  Being  and  a  unique  function  to  mankind.  Thus 
the  special  claims  which  He  makes  are  not  an  aggravation 
of  the  problem  which  His  character  presents :  they  are 
in  a  very  real  sense  an  alleviation,  for  they  offer  an 
explanation  of  the  existence  in  Humanity  of  a  moral 
consciousness  which  without  them  would  be  inexplicable. 
It  is  by  keeping  these  facts  in  view  that  we  can 
alone  hope  to  understand  the  name,  Son  of  Man,  by 
which  He  loved  to  designate  Himself^  A  favourite 
rendering  is  that  which  represents  it  as  Christ's  descrip- 
tion of  His  intense  brotherliness  and  nearness  to  men, 
the  lowliness  of  His  spirit,  the  weakness  and  privation  of 
His  lot.  An  argument  for  this  is  drawn  from  the  use  of 
the  phrase  in  Ezekiel.  The  designation,  "  Thou  Son  of 
Man,"  by  which  every  commission  the  prophet  receives 
from  God  is  introduced,  sets  forth,  we  are  told,^  his 
profound  sense  of  the  nothingness  of  the  human  agent, 
when  called  to  be  the  organ  of  a  divine  intent,  so  that 
he  is  emptied  of  all  semblance  of  dignity  and  pride,  can 
only  yield  himself  to  be  disposed  of  by  the  hand  of  God, 
and  move  with  lowly  and  equal  sympathy  among  the 
brotherhood  of  mankind.  Dr.  Martineau  gets  rid  of  all 
the  passages  that  speak  definitely  of  the  coming  glory  ^ 

^  "  It  appears  more  than  fifty  times,  without  reckoning  the  parallel 
passages  ;  and  there  can  be  the  less  doubt  of  its  originality  that  it  is  found 
only  in  His  mouth,  and  not  applied  to  Him  by  others." — Beyschlag,  N.7\ 
Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  60. 

-  Martineau,  Seat  of  Atithorily,  pp.  337,  33S. 

^  Even  the  saying,  "  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests; 
but  the  Son  of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head"  (Luke  ix.  58),  which 
Dr.  Martineau  {Seat  of  Authority,  p.  338)  takes  as  the  typical  expression  ot 
the  lowliness  connoted  by  the  name,  and  which  he  uses  to  discredit  the  idea 
of  authority  or  glory  as  also  designated  by  it,  practically  derives  all  its  point 
from  the  contrast  it  involves  between  an  implied  dignity  and  a  visible  humilia- 
tion.    On  Dr.  Martincau's  rendering  the  whole  thing  is  reduced  to  a  tautology: 


II.]  interpreted  dy  His  Claims  6i 

of  the  Son  of  Man  by  boldly  discarding  thenn  as  un- 
historical,  and  attributing  them  to  the  later  consciousness 
of  the  Church  which  had  come  to  believe  in  Jesus  as 
Messiah.  It  was  a  reading  back  into  the  past  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  faith  attained  only  a  generation  after- 
wards. But  why  in  that  case  did  the  Church  not  put 
the  direct  claim  to  be  Messiah  into  the  lips  of  Jesus  ? 
why  did  it  wrap  up  His  Messianic  dignity  in  an  enig- 
matic name  ?  If  it  be  said,  because  it  could  not  exhibit 
Him  "  as  habitually  employing  a  name  which  He  care- 
fully avoided ;  and  so  the  Messianic  feeling  had  to 
embody  itself  in  some  other  term  which  could  find  a 
sanction  in  His  own  practice,"  then  the  argument  really 
comes  to  this,  that  the  Church  had  so  much  regard  for 
the  facts  of  Jesus'  life  that  it  would  not  attribute  to  Him 
a  title  which  He  had  never  assumed,^  but  also  so  little 
regard  for  them  that  it  actually  took  another  title  and 
filled  it  with  a  meaning  just  the  opposite  of  what  He 
intended.  Surely  the  care  with  which  it  portrays  Jesus' 
slowness  in  assuming  the  name  of  Messiah  is  some 
guarantee  that,  if  it  so  frequently  represents  Him  as 
employing  the  other  name  of  Son  of  Man  with  a  con- 
notation of  dignity  and  sovereignty,  it  is  because  it  is  not 
creating  or  reading  back,  but  recording. 

It  is  simply  inconceivable  that  the  name  which  Jesus 
chooses  as  the  best  designation  of  His   person   and  work 


"  The  sympathetic  and  lowly  man  has  a  lowly  lot."  Other  passages  also,  as, 
e.g.,  "  The  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost,"  or, 
"  The  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,"  lose  half 
their  force  if  there  be  no  similar  contrast  implied,  and  the  predicate  only 
repeats  or  unfolds  the  content  of  the  subject. 

^  On  Dr.  Martineau's  impossible  theory  that  Jesus  never  claimed  to  be  the 
Messiah,  see  Lecture  III.  p.  93,  and  Note  19,  p.  409. 


62  Chris  fs  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

should  signify  merely  His  abasement,  His  equal  sym- 
pathy with  others,  and  thus  be  in  direct  antagonism  to 
the  whole  impression  of  sovereignty  which  His  bearing 
made,  and  was  intended  to  make,  upon  men.  If  He 
wished  them  to  understand  by  His  employment  of  the 
phrase  "  Son  of  Man  "  that  He  stood  upon  the  common 
level,  but  with  an  intenser  feeling  than  that  possessed  by 
any  other  of  brotherliness,  meekness,  and  readiness  to 
serve,  then  how  came  He  to  act  constantly  in  a  manner 
so  wholly  contrary  to  this  ?  What  meant  His  revision 
and  supersession  of  the  Mosaic  law.  His  sovereign  tone 
in  commanding  obedience  and  forgiving  sin  ?  If  His 
conduct  conveyed,  as  it  did  even  in  its  most  gracious 
aspects,  a  sense  of  His  aloofness,  supremacy,  and  right 
to  reign,  it  is  quite  certain  that  this  and  no  other  would 
be  the  view  taken  by  those  who  heard  Him,  of  His  own 
thought  concerning  Himself;  and  they  would  not  err  in 
so  doing,  if  we  are  to  allow  to  Him  the  most  elementary 
self-consistency. 

There  would,  further,  have  been  something  peculiarly 
unhappy  in  the  selection  of  the  name  as  a  mere  synonym 
for  lowliness.  It  would  then  have  contradicted  and 
defeated  its  own  object ;  for  it  inevitably  suggested  the 
great  vision  of  Daniel,  who  saw  "  coming  with  the  clouds 
of  heaven  One  like  unto  a  Son  of  Man,"  to  whom  was 
given  "  dominion,  glory,  and  a  kingdom,  that  all  the 
peoples,  nations,  and  languages  should  serve  Him  :  and 
His  dominion  is  an  everlasting  dominion."  ^  •  That  this 
was  an  allusion  which  it  carried,  and  was  intended  by 
Jesus  to  carry,  is  not  only  probable  but  certain  from  the 
words  which   He   uses   at   His   trial   in    His  reply  to  the 

^  Dan.  vii.  13,  14. 


II.]  mterprefed  by  His  Claims  63 

High  Priest's  question,^  and  which,  according  to  the 
triple  Synoptic  account,  He  had  previously  employed  in 
His  discourse  on  the  Last  Things.^  "Ye  shall  see  the 
Son  of  Man  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  power,  and 
coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven."  Mr.  Carpenter,  who 
admits  this  to  be  a  genuine  saying  of  Jesus,  denies  that 
it  has  any  personal  reference  to  Him.  Daniel's  vision, 
he  argues  plausibly  enough,  is  simply  a  picture  of  the 
establishment  of  the  kingdom  given  to  the  saints  of  the 
Most  High.  The  mysterious  figure  is  a  symbol,  like  the 
lion,  the  bear,  and  the  leopard,  which  represented  the 
great  Gentile  empires.  But  it  is  nobler  than  they ;  it 
wears  a  human  form,  and  stands  for  other  qualities  than 
those  of  bestial  appetite  and  worldly  might.  "  The 
majestic  personage  to  whom  the  perpetual  sovereignty 
over  all  the  world  is  assigned  is  the  purified  Israel,  who 
will  rise  into  glory  and  receive  the  obedience  of  all 
worldly  powers."  ^  And  Mr.  Carpenter  holds  that  Jesus 
uses  the  phrase  in  this  imaginative  sense  as  a  symbol  of 
the  triumph  of  God's  people.  "  Why,"  he  asks,  "  should 
it  have  a  personal  application  on  His  lips  which  it  has  not 
in  the  Book  of  Daniel  ?  "  *  For  the  simple  reason  that 
this  symbolic  interpretation  is  wholly  inadmissible  in 
other  places  where  the  name  is  found,  and  where  nothing 
but  a  reference  to  Himself  will  even  make  sense  of  the 
passage.  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  eating  and  drinking  "  ; 
"  the  Son  of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head  "  ;  "  the 
Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister."      It   would   be   preposterous    to    suppose    that 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  64. 

2  Matt.  xvi.  27  ;  Mark  xiii,  26  ;  Luke  xxi.  27. 

'  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  The  Synoptic  Gospels,  p.  104. 
^  Ibid.  p.  247. 


64  Christ's  Self-Conscioitsness  as  [Lect. 

Jesus  employed  the  word  in  two  senses,  now  as  an 
impersonal  symbol,  now  as  a  personal  designation. 
So  there  is  only  one  way  for  Mr.  Carpenter  out  of 
the  difficulty ;  and  he  takes  the  leap.  He  denies  the 
genuineness  of  these  latter  and  personal  passages  as  they 
stand.  But  this  is  to  repudiate  what  is  almost  universally 
accepted  even  by  his  own  school.^  Moreover,  the  words 
of  Jesus  at  His  trial  on  which  Mr.  Carpenter  relies  are 
not,  even  in  themselves,  capable  of  a  merely  symbolic  or 
ideal  .sense.  In  reply  to  the  question,  "  Art  Thou  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed  ?  "  He  answers,  "  I  am  : 
and  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  at  the  right 
hand  of  power."  ^  There  would  be  no  point  in  the  reply 
unless  it  had  a  note  of  self-reference  and  self-vindication.^ 

^  Mr.  Carpenter's  interpretation  of  the  phrases  I  have  quoted  and  of  others 
similar  to  them  is  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  improbable  exegesis.  Ibid.  pp.  381-386. 
It  is  curious  that  Dr.  Martineau  and  Mr.  Carpenter,  who  take  substantially 
the  same  theological  attitude,  should  be  so  utterly  divergent  in  their  rendering 
of  Jesus'  use  of  the  term  "Son  of  Man."  In  the  view  of  the  latter  it  is  a 
symbol  of  the  future  glory  of  God's  people,  and  has  no  personal  reference. 
In  that  of  the  former  it  is  essentially  personal,  and  describes,  not  the  glory  of 
Christ,  but  the  lowliness  and  sympathy  of  His  character.  The  expressions 
that  are  historical  to  the  one  are  repudiated  by  the  other  as  the  creation  of  an 
after-time.     They  pretty  well  refute  each  other's  negations. 

2  Mark  xiv.  61,  dz. 

2  While  it  is  true  that  the  passages  in  the  Gospels  where  "  Son  of  Man  " 
occurs  are  all  so  penetrated  with  Messianic  meaning  that  Messiah  might  just 
as  well  be  substituted  for  it  (Beyschlag),  yet  this  identification  was  not  as 
clear  to  the  Jews  as  to  us.  "  Son  of  Man"  was  in  their  minds  an  indeter- 
minate conception,  with  divergent  associations  drawn  from  Ezekiel  and  from 
Daniel.  Whether  they  interpreted  the  language  of  the  latter  as  symbolic  or 
personal  may  be  open  to  question  ;  but,  as  it  undoubtedly  conveyed  the  idea 
of  supreme  power  and  triumph,  they  found  it  somewhat  bewildering  to 
reconcile  this  thought  with  the  sympathy  and  humility  which  were  suggested 
by  the  name  in  other  prophetic  utterances,  and  which  were  so  plainly  charac- 
teristics of  Jesus  Himself.  Hence,  though  on  His  lips  it  was  a  designation  of 
the  Messiah,  it  was  a  veiled  designation  ;  and  purposely  so,  as  enabling  Plim 
on  account  of  its  diverse  meanings  or  allusions  to  introduce  gradually  into  the 
minds  of  His  disciples  the  new  and  deeper  conception  of  Messiahship  which 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  65 

There  is  thus  embedded  in  the  name  a  consciousness 
on  the  part  of  Jesus  of  a  kingdom  which  He  came  to 
estabHsh,  and  of  which  He  is  the  Head.  But  He  is 
the  Head  of  it  in  virtue  of  being  the  Son  of  Man ;  in 
virtue,  that  is,  of  quahties  that  are  truly  human,  tender- 
ness, sympathy,  generosity,  as  opposed  to  the  irrational 
authority  and  brute  force  of  heathen  kingdoms.  Hence 
He  frequently  introduces  the  term  in  connection  with 
abasement  and  self-surrender,  not  as  indicating  that  He 
has  no  authority,  but  as  descriptive  of  the  character  of 
that  authority,  and  the  means  whereby  it  has  become 
His.  He  attains  and  perpetuates  His  lordship  through 
service,  and  His  lordship  is  such  as  none  other  can 
share,  because  His  service  is  such  as  none  other  can 
render.^  This  is  the  only  interpretation  that  will  suit 
the  diverse  passages,  which  associate  the  name  both  with 
glory  and  with  humiliation.  It  resolves  their  apparent 
contradiction,  because  it  implies  that  the  two  contrasted 
ideas  are  only  abstract  opposites,  and  that  they  are  in 
reality  the  two  phases  of  an  essential  unity.  "  Whoso- 
ever of  you  will  be  the  chiefest,  shall  be  servant  of  all." 
This  dual  experience  is  a  characteristic  of  the  kingdom 
itself;  it  belongs  to  the  members  as  well  as  to  the  Head. 
But  it  belongs  to  Him   in  a  sense  supreme  and  solitary : 

alone  He  had  come  to  realise.  The  parts  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  in  which  the 
Messiah  is  termed  Son  of  Man  are  perhaps  post-Christian.  Stanton,  Jezvish 
and  Christian  Messiah,  p.  59  ff. ;  Drummond,  [ezvish  Messiah,  pp.  48-73. 
On  the  other  hand,  Charles,  Book  of  Enoch,  pp.  30,  314-317,  Thomson,  Books 
which  influenced  our  Lord,  pp.  407-410,  and  Briggs,  Messiah  of  the  Gospels, 
p.  25,  assign  a  pre-Christian  date.  "Our  Lord  always  taiies  for  granted," 
says  Dr.  Thomson,  "  that  His  auditors  knew  that  He  designated  Himself  as 
Messiah  Ijy  this  title."  If  this  be  so,  how  comes  it  that  Jesus,  who  from  the 
first  called  Himself  the  Son  of  Man,  treats  Peter's  confession  of  His  Messiahship 
as  a  newly-revealed  truth  of  unspeakable  moment? 
1  Mark  x.  43-45. 

5 


66         '       Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

He  can  dwell  upon  His  self-sacrifice  without  loss  of 
humility,  not  only  because  it  has  a  height  and  a  depth 
which  they  can  neither  approach  nor  measure,  but  be- 
cause it  has  a  quality  in  it  different  from  theirs.  That 
He  is  capable  of  this  self-sacrifice,  whereby  He  is  indeed 
the  servant  of  all,  and  so  the  lord  of  all,  inevitably  in- 
volves the  wonderfulness  of  the  "self"  that  makes  it,  and 
we  ought  not  to  suffer  the  vagueness  attaching  to  the 
name  "  Son  of  Man  "  to  hide  this  from  us.  When  Meyer 
says,  "  He  who  among  mere  men  calls  Himself  the  Son 
of  Man,  means  thereby  to  declare  that  His  human  exist- 
ence is  something  miraculous,  a  form  of  existence  which 
is  not  original  to  Him,"  he  lays  himself  open  to 
Beyschlag's  ^  criticism,  that  Jesus  could  not  be  guilty  of 
the  parodox  of  employing  a  term  which  identified  Him 
with  men,  when  He  intended  to  convey  by  it  a  meaning 
precisely  the  opposite.  But  it  is  rather  the  form  of 
Meyer's  exposition  that  is  at  fault,  than  the  underlying 
idea.  Certainly  the  primary  emphasis  lies  on  the  human 
character  of  the  work  which  Jesus  came  to  do ;  but  just 
as  certainly  He  who  alone  stands  in  this  universal 
relation  to  humanity  cannot  be  merely  a  member  of  it. 

What,  then,  was  the  mysterious  background  in  His 
being  which  rendered  such  a  universal  relation  possible  ? 
It  was  the  consciousness  of  His  divine  Sonship,  "  All 
things  are  delivered  unto  Me  of  My  Father :  and  no  man 
knoweth  the  Son,  save  the  Father ;  neither  knoweth  any 
man  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the 
Son  willeth  to  reveal  Him."^  Consider  what  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Father  here  means.  It  is  not  an  intellectual 
quality,  the   understanding   of  His  will ;  it   is   the   fulfil- 

^  N.  T.  Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  6i.  "^  Malt.  xi.  27  ;  Luke  x.  22. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  67 

ment  of  His  will,  through  obedience  and  fellowship. 
All  moral  knowledge  comes  through  experience  and  life, 
and  if  the  right  life  is  not  there,  right  knowledge  is  im- 
possible. Hence  men  cannot  truly  know  God  till  they 
become  like  Him,  till  they  enter  into  union  with  Him 
through  the  possession  of  His  Spirit.  It  is  thus  that 
the  word  is  used  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  "  This  is  life 
eternal,  that  they  should  know  Thee  the  only  true  God, 
and  Him  whom  Thou  didst  send,  even  Jesus  Christ." 
Jesus  takes  His  stand  between  the  Father  and  all  men. 
It  is  through  Him  that  true  sonship  is  born  in  them  and 
sustained.  He  possesses  it  and  imparts  it.  He  cannot 
impart  to  others  His  individual^  sense  of  perfect  unity 
with  God ;  but  He  claims  to  be  able  to  restore  them  to 
harmony  with  the  Father,  to  a  true  filial  spirit.  This 
mediation  of  His  is  not  a  temporary  stage,  but  a  per- 
manent condition  of  their  development  and  progressive 
knowledge  of  the  Father's  life.  His  consciousness  of 
Sonship  is  closely  associated  with  His  redeeming  work, 
with  His  unreserved  consecration  of  Himself  in  the  world 
to  the  Father's  will.  The  conviction  that  as  the  Son  He 
alone  knows  the  Father,  leads  immediately  to  the  other 
thought,  that  He  is  the  intermediary  of  this  knowledge 
to  all  others ;  "  to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal 
Him."  Hence  it  is  specially  emphasised  at  the  Baptism, 
when  He  was  entering  on  His  mission,  and  at  the 
Transfiguration,  when  the  great  turning-point  of  the 
mission  had  been  reached,  and  the  shadows  of  the  end 
began  to  fall.  It  is  penetrated  and  filled  with  a  spiritual 
and  practical  content.  But  this  content — the  absolute 
knowledge  of  the  Father,  and   the  adequacy  to  impart 

^  See  anie^  pp.  37-8. 


68  Christ' s  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lcct. 

the  Father's  life — was  so  transcendent  in  Jesus,  that 
we  are  compelled  to  believe  that  such  a  relation  of 
perfect  love  between  the  Father  and  Him  who  knew 
Himself  to  be  the  Son,  had  not  its  birth  in  time ;  that 
it  was  an  eternal  reality  which  only  received  a  special 
expression  under  human  conditions  in  the  life  of  Jesus. 
When  speaking  of  the  Last  Things,  He  intimates  how 
in  one  point  these  human  conditions  exercise  a  limiting 
effect  on  a  relationship  which  is  yet  represented  as 
supreme  above  all  comparison.  "  Of  that  day  or  that 
hour  knoweth  no  one,  not  even  the  angels  in  heaven, 
7ieither  the  Son,  but  the  Father."  ^ 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  name  Son  of  God  is  in 
the  Old  Testament  applied  to  Israel,  and  in  particular 
to  the  Theocratic  King,^  who  is  to  be  God's  "  firstborn, 
higher  than  the  kings  of  the  earth."  ^  It  denotes  there 
simply  that  His  people  and  their  sovereign  are  the 
peculiar  object  of  God's  favour,  and  chosen  by  Him  for 
an  exceptional  mission.  But  this  usage  throws  not  the 
least  light  on  the  meaning  of  the  Sonship  claimed  by 
Jesus,  which  has  to  be  interpreted  by  reference  to 
Himself  and  the  connection  in  which  He  employs  it. 
Consequently  it  avails  little  to  ask  what  the  name 
imports  on  the  lips  of  those  who  apply  it  to  Him,  such 
as  the  Centurion  and  the  High  Priest.'^  In  all  prob- 
ability it  is  with  them  but  an  intensification  of  the 
Old  Testament  idea  of  pre-eminent  nearness  to  God 
or  selection  for  a  high  function  of  service.  Nay,  even 
the  fact  that  Jesus,  according  to  Matthew,  accepts  the 
designation   from   Peter,  "  Thou   art  the  Christ,  the  Son 

^  See  ante,  p.  19,  n.  "  Ps.  ii.  7« 

•  Ps.  Ixxxix.  27.  *  Matt,  xxvii.  54,  xxvi.  63. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  69 

of  the  living  God,"  ^  does  not  prove  that  for  Peter 
it  had  the  same  significance  as  for  Himself.  The 
apostle  at  that  stage  could  have  had  no  such  conception 
of  Christ's  Deity  as  he  afterwards  attained.  But  Jesus 
welcomes  his  confession,  not  because  it  is  adequate,  but 
because  it  is  at  least  the  beginning  of  a  true  recognition. 
When  Beyschlag  says  that  "  in  thus  accepting  a  name 
which  was  current  among  the  people.  He  can  have 
attached  to  it  no  new  and  unheard-of  meanine,"  ^  he 
must  have  forgotten  that  Jesus  also  endorses  the  title 
of  Messiah  ascribed  to  Him,  even  though  it  did  not 
mean  for  Peter  what  it  meant  for  Him.  Half  the  work 
of  Jesus  was  just  the  filling  of  terms  commonly  used 
with  a  richer  content.  This  applies,  above  all,  to  His 
own  unshared  consciousness  of  Sonship.  That  Sonship 
for  Him  was  unique,  not  merely  because  it  was  capable 
of  receiving  and  responding  to  the  full  loving  purpose  of 
the  Father,  but  because  it  lay  at  the  basis  of  all  sonship 
in  others,  and  therefore  had  a  universal  meaning  for  the 
race.  That  is  the  explanation  He  Himself  gives  of 
those  characteristics  of  autocracy,  of  self-assertive 
humility,  which  are  so  utterly  bewildering  in  so  self- 
sacrificing  a  soul. 

Many  have  endeavoured  to  represent  these  claims 
as  implying,  not  His  Deity,  but  simply  His  Messiahship. 
Sharing  as  He  did,  it  is  said,  the  religious  traditions  of 
His  race.  He  felt  Himself  called  of  God  by  indisputable 
inward  witness  to  be  the  Messiah,  the  fulfiller  of  all  the 
best  hopes  of  the  past.      No  doubt  He  read  these  hopes 

1  Mark  has  only,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,"  viii.  29.     Luke  has  '*  the  Christ 
of  God,"  ix.  20. 

^  N.  T.  Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  69. 


70  Christ's  Sclf-Conscionsness  as  [Lect. 

in  a  more  spiritual  sense  than  was  ever  hitherto  con- 
ceived; He  altered  the  character  of  the  Messiah's  work; 
He  eliminated  some  elements  and  introduced  others. 
But  still  the  relation  in  which  the  Messiah  stood  to 
God  remained  for  Him  unchanged.  The  Jews  never 
expected  the  "Anointed  One"  to  be  Himself  divine. 
However  supreme  His  function  in  the  realisation  of 
God's  purpose,  and  separated  though  He  was  by  an 
impassable  gulf  from  that  of  all  other  servants  of  the 
Lord,  He  was  still  only  God's  messenger.  When  Jesus, 
then,  assumes  exceptional  prerogatives  in  commanding 
loyalty  to  Himself,  and  in  mediating  as  the  Son  between 
all  men  and  the  Father,  He  is  not  disclosing  His  own 
inner  nature  as  divine,  or  at  all  intending  to  suggest 
such  a  thought ;  He  is  merely  speaking  in  an  official 
sense  as  the  Unique  One  appointed  by  God  to  be  the 
promised  deliverer.  It  is  the  expression  of  His  historic 
consciousness  of  Messiahship. 

But  it  requires  little  argument  to  show  that  the 
change,  which  all  must  admit  in  Jesus'  idea  of  the  quality 
and  significance  of  the  Messiah's  mission,  necessitates  a 
change  in  His  idea  of  the  Messiah  Himself  It  might 
well  be  that  that  mission,  as  viewed  by  the  Jews,  did  not 
involve  in  their  minds  a  divine  nature  for  its  accomplish- 
ment, and  yet  that  the  mission  as  reconstrued  by  Jesus 
did  so.  The  Messianic  hope  of  the  Jews  varied  greatly 
from  age  to  age  ;  it  is  a  vague  picture  which  floats  and 
wavers  on  the  horizon.  But  certain  particulars  remain 
more  or  less  distinctly  present.  i.  The  Messiah  was  to 
be  in  an  altogether  special  sense  God's  minister.  He 
would  be  the  perfect  realisation  of  the  theocratic  king. 
He  would  stand  in  a  peculiar  relationship  of  union  with^ 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  71 

and  dependence  upon,  Jehovah.  The  stamp  of  God's 
authority  would  be  visibly  upon  Him  ;  the  favour  of  God 
would  be  manifestly  with  Him.  2.  In  Him  the  heart's 
yearnings  would  find  absolute  satisfaction.  Prophets 
and  righteous  kings  only  pointed  to  and  typified  Him. 
But  when  He  came,  men  would  "  not  look  for  another." 
The  long  vista  of  expectation  was  closed  with  His  form. 
3.  He  would  not  only  be  the  culmination  and  completion 
of  Israel's  desire  and  blessedness  ;  He  would  be  supreme 
over  all  nations  of  the  earth.  Sometimes  these  nations 
were  represented  as  coming  to  Jerusalem  to  render  a 
willing  homage  ;  at  other  times  as  alien  and  reluctant, 
and  crushed  by  the  Messiah  as  the  vicegerent  of  the 
true  God.  In  one  form  or  other  His  supremacy  would 
be  complete.^ 

If  that  was  the  floating  historic  idea  of  the  Messiah, 
what  new  elements  did  Jesus  introduce  into  it  ?  He 
denationalised  the  whole  conception,  and  so  spiritualised 
it.  The  kingdom  of  God,  as  He  viewed  it,  was  a 
kingdom  which  men  entered  one  by  one,  not  merely  as 
Jews,  but  as  men  whose  hearts  turned  to  Him  as  the 
deliverer.  Their  fitness  for  it  was  inward  and  spiritual  ; 
and  this  fitness  sprang  from  a  right  relation  to  Himself. 
Therefore  His  power  had  to  extend  to  the  deepest  life  of 
the  soul,  to  its  inmost  struggles  and  temptations.  The 
Messiah's  salvation  of  His  people  had  now  to  be  wrought 
out,  not  by  His  external  interposition  in  their  behalf, 
but  by  His  identification  with  them.  His  lowliness  and 
suffering,   which    seemed    at    first    the    negation   of    His 

^  Stanton,  Jewish  and  Christian  Messiah^  pp.  146-149  ;  cf.  Drummond, 
Jewish  Messiah,  pp.  388-390.  A  clear  and  succinct  account  of  the  growth  of 
the  Messianic  Hope  in  the  Old  Testament  is  given  by  Stanton  in  the  Cam- 
bridge Companion  to  the  Bible,  pp.  120-123. 


72  Christ's  Self-Conscioitsness  as  [Lect. 

authority,  were  the  very  means  by  which  it  was  created 
and  maintained.  They  emphasised  the  spiritual  nature 
of  His  own  victory  over  the  world,  and  therefore  the 
spiritual  nature  of  the  victory  that  He  secured  for  others. 
The  deliverance  became  theirs,  not  by  His  action 
independently  of  their  own,  but  through  their  personal 
receptivity  as  individuals  to  the  life  which  centred  in 
Him.  It  was  just  because  He  could  thus  be  to  the 
individual  what  God  alone  can  be,  that  He  could  declare 
Himself  the  ultimate  Judge  of  both  quick  and  dead. 
This  was  a  function  which  the  Jews  never  assigned  to 
the  Messiah.^  He  was,  indeed,  to  pronounce  judgment 
on  the  Gentile  nations  by  shattering  the  world-dominion 
of  the  heathen,  and  so  opening  up  the  way  for  the 
Messianic  kingdom  upon  earth.  But  the  final  and 
eternal  verdict  on  men's  characters  was  reserved  for  God 
Himself.  Jesus,  in  ascribing  this  office  to  Himself, 
distinctly  lays  claim  to  an  inalienable  prerogative  of 
Deity.  It  may  be  a  question  whether  even  the  hopes 
attaching  themselves  to  the  old  Messianic  idea  could  have 
been  in  any  real  manner  fulfilled  by  One  who  was  not 
divine.  If  he  were  to  be  the  full  satisfaction  of  the 
heart's  desire,  to  bring  inward  righteousness  as  well  as 
outward  prosperity  and  peace,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  how 
this  mission  could  be  discharged  by  any  creature  of  God, 
no  matter  how  exalted.^  But,  in  arguing  thus,  we  are 
apt  to  import  into  the  Jewish  idea  an  individualism  which 
belongs  to  a  later  time.  The  thought  ol  personal 
responsibility    was     not     yet    denuded     of    its    national 

^Jewish   ami    Chn'sh'an    Messiah,    pp.    140,    291  ;    l")runiniond,  Jewish 
Messiah,  p.  390.     Cf.  Charles'  view,  Book  of  Enoch,  j^p.  125-129,  315. 
^  Sec  Ciore,  Dissertations,  p.  17,  v.  8. 


II.]  intei'preted  by  His  Claims  73 

reference.  But  we  may  fairly  say  that  the  "  prophetic 
soul  dreaming  on  things  to  come "  spoke  more  wisely 
than  it  knew,  and  conjured  up  visions  which  we  can  now 
see  to  be  unattainable,  unless  under  conditions  which 
could  not  then  be  forecast. 

What  we  have  to  do  with,  then,  is  not  the  Messiah  as 
expected  by  Israel,  but  the  Messiah  as  conceived  by 
Jesus.  When  the  external  elements  of  deliverance  were 
purged  out,  and  the  sphere  of  redemption  transferred  from 
the  nation  to  the  single  soul,  it  was  morally  impossible 
for  Him  to  retain  for  Himself  the  former  solitary  and 
supreme  authority  of  the  Messiah,  unless  He  had  the 
witness  in  Himself  that  He  possessed  the  divine  power  of 
searching,  moulding,  and  judging  human  hearts.  It  is 
an  entire  misconception  to  suppose  that  Jesus  attained 
first  to  the  official  consciousness  of  Messiahship,  and 
then,  in  the  light  of  that,  arrived  at  the  personal  con- 
sciousness of  His  Sonship  to  the  Father.  If  we  can  say 
that  the  one  preceded  the  other,  it  was  the  personal 
which  gave  birth  to  the  official,  not  vice  vei^sd  ;  or  rather, 
as  they  probably  arose  in  close  association  with  each 
other,  the  personal  lay  at  the  basis  of  the  official,  and 
implied  it :  certainly  it  could  never  have  been  created  by 
it.  Jesus  felt  that  He,  and  He  alone,  realised  in  Himself 
what  was  yet  to  be  realised  in  the  people ;  and  this 
consciousness  of  His  own  Sonship  in  the  fullest  sense, 
awaked  the  Messianic  consciousness  that  only  through 
Him  all  the  individuals  of  the  nation  could  become  really 
the  children  of  God.^ 

In  this  discussion  I  have  for  obvious  reasons  confined 
myself  to  the  Synoptics.      Is  the   representation  which  is 

*  Weiss,  Life  of  Christ,  vol.  i.  p.  303,  ;/. 


74  Christ's  Sclf-Conscioiisncss  as  [Lect. 

given  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  as  is  so  often  maintained, 
radically  different?  Let  us  take  the  two  essential  points 
— (i)  Jesus'  relation  to  men,  and  (2)  His  relation  to  the 
F'ather.  i.  The  peculiarity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  the 
emphatic  and  persistent  way  in  which  it  sets  forth  the 
inwardness  of  His  relation  to  His  disciples,  the  mystical 
identification  of  His  life  with  theirs.  This  will  necessarily 
seem  an  incredible  claim,  if  we  adopt  a  very  common 
delusion  that  the  Jesus  of  the  first  three  Gospels  is  merely 
a  spiritual  prophet  of  the  highest  kind  ;  severe,  doubtless, 
towards  many  forms  of  false  religion,  but  entrancing  us 
by  the  beauty  of  His  character  and  the  sweet  gracious- 
ness  of  His  message  ;  careless  about  Himself  and  the  ideas 
men  had  of  His  personality,  so  only  He  could  lead  them 
to  think  rightly  of  the  merciful  Father  in  heaven.  But 
the  Synoptic  account  contradicts  this  at  every  step.  Let 
me  recapitulate  what  we  have  there  found.  Christ  sums 
up  the  past  as  the  full  and  final  revelation  of  God  to 
men  ;  He  dictates  their  course,  and  imposes  on  them 
without  hesitation  the  most  trying  sacrifices  ;  He  judges 
their  hearts  now,  and  will  judge  them  finally  hereafter. 
He  possesses  an  absolutely  unique  moral  consciousness  of 
harmony  with  God,  and  stands  there,  not  as  a  solitary  and 
supreme  example  to  inspire  and  instruct,  but  as  the  sole 
Mediator  of  the  spirit  of  sonship  which  all  need.  When 
we  read,  therefore,  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  Jesus 
declared,  "  I  am  the  bread  of  life,"  or  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye 
are  the  branches,"  "  as  the  branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of 
itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine ;  no  more  can  ye,  except 
ye  abide  in  Me,"  ^  there  is  no  real  change  in  the  idea  as 
compared  with  the  self-disclosures   made   by  Jesus  in  the 

^  John  vi.  48,  XV.  5,  4. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  75 

Synoptics.  There  is  a  certain  unfolding  of  it,  a  more 
direct  statement  of  a  personal  and  inward  fellowship,  but 
no  essential  advance.  And  the  proof  of  this  is,  that  if  we 
repudiate  such  words  as  giving  a  false  view  of  Christ's 
teaching,  then  we  must  deny  the  genuineness,  not  only 
of  a  few  phrases  in  the  Synoptics,  but  of  their  entire 
presentation  ;  for  the  work  which  Jesus  there  claims  to 
do  for  human  souls,  and  the  place  which  He  asserts  for 
Himself  in  their  allegiance,  are  only  possible  to  one  who 
has  towards  all  the  divine  power  of  entrance  and 
possession. 

2.  Nothing  can  be  more  erroneous  than  to  speak  of 
the  view  of  Christ's  Sonship  to  the  Father  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  as  an  abstract  and  philosophical  conception, 
having  only  an  external  connection  with  the  facts  of 
Christ's  life  and  experience.  It  is  not  so,  even  in  the 
passages  where  the  Evangelist  speaks  in  his  own  name  ; 
and  in  the  sayings  attributed  to  Jesus,  His  Sonship  is  the 
very  reverse  of  an  abstract  term.  Still  more  plainly  than 
in  the  Synoptics  is  the  consciousness  of  it  definitely 
correlated  to  His  mission  as  Redeemer.  However  true 
it  may  be  that  it  involves  an  eternal  background  of 
Being,  yet  His  expression  of  it  remains  ever  in  inseparable 
connection  with  the  fact  and  purpose  of  His  human  life. 
He  is  not  merely  the  Son,  but  the  Son  in  Humanity, 
existing  and  manifesting  Himself  as  man  for  the  reunion 
of  souls  to  the  Father.  "  My  Father  worketh  even  until 
now  :  and  I  work.  .  .  .  For  as  the  Father  raiseth  the 
dead  and  quickeneth  them,  even  so  the  Son  also 
quickeneth  whom  He  will."  "  As  the  Father  hath  life 
in  Himself,  even  so  gave  He  to  the  Son  also  to  have  life 
in    Himself:    and   He  gave   Him    authority   to    execute 


'](^  Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

judgment,  because  He  is  Son  of  Man."  ^  Wherever  His 
Sonship  is  most  emphasised  by  Him,  it  is  always  in 
relation  to  the  mission  entrusted  to  Him  on  earth.  He 
is  sent  by  the  Father.  "  Yea,  and  if  I  judge,  My  judg- 
ment is  true ;  for  I  am  not  alone,  but  I  and  the  Father 
that  sent  Me."  ^  As  in  the  Synoptics  He  declines  the 
title  Good,  because  in  the  fullest  sense  it  is  applicable 
only  to  pure  Deity,  while  His  own  goodness  on  earth 
was  human,  progressive  ;  so  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  He 
repudiates  the  charge  of  making  Himself  equal  to  the 
Father.  "  The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  Himself,  but  what 
He  seeth  the  Father  doing  :  for  what  things  soever  He 
doeth,  these  the  Son  also  doeth  in  like  manner.  For  the 
Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  showeth  Him  all  things  that 
Himself  doeth :  and  greater  works  than  these  will  He 
show  Him,  that  ye  may  marvel."^  No  words  could 
bring  out  more  clearly  the  three  phases  of  Christ's 
person  :  His  inferiority  to  the  Father,  as  the  organ  of 
His  life;  His  unity  with  the  Father,  as  being  adequate  to 
receive  and  communicate  that  life ;  and  the  expression  of 
this  complete  Sonship  in  marvellous  works  among  men. 

In  one  particular  the  Fourth  Gospel  goes  beyond  the 
Synoptics,  namely,  the  affirmation  which  Christ  makes 
of  His  pre-existence.  "  Before  Abraham  was,  1  am  "  ; 
"  Glorify  Thou  Me  with  Thine  own  self  with  the  glory 
which   I   had  with  Thee  before  the  world  was."  ^     Some 


^  Chap.  V.  17,21,26,  27.  In  vcr.  27,  "  Son  of  Man  "  or  "a  Son  of  Man," 
not  "the  Son  of  Man,"  is  the  true  rcndcrint^.  The  Son  hath  this  prerogative 
of  judgment  coniniitted  to  Ilini,  because,  uliile  being  tlie  Son,  He  is  also  Man. 
See  Westcott,  Comni,  on  St.  John,  in  loc. 

-  Chap.  viii.  l6. 

^  Chaps.  V.  18-21,  X.  33-36. 

*•  Chaps,  viii.  58,  xvii.  5  ;  of.  also  vi.  62,  xvi.  28,  xvii.  i.\. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  "jy 

theologians^  who  accept  these  words  as  genuine  sayings 
of  Christ,  maintain  that  they  do  not  imply  a  reference  to 
a  former  life  in  heaven  before  His  earthly  one ;  that  they 
describe,  not  a  personal  existence,  but  an  ideal  one,  as  the 
object  from  all  eternity  of  God's  loving  regard.  They 
maintain  that  Jesus  was  following  here  a  prevailing 
Jewish  form  of  thought.  Everything  holy  or  divine  that 
appeared  on  earth,  or  was  expected,  was  traced  back  to  a 
heavenly  original.  The  tabernacle  was  made  according 
to  the  pattern  in  the  Mount ;  the  kingdom  of  God  was 
prepared  for  the  righteous  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world  ;  their  reward  is  even  now  laid  up  in  heaven.  So 
Jesus,  recognising  that  through  Him  alone  God's  purpose 
towards  humanity  was  to  be  realised,  and  that  all  history 
gathered  itself  up  in  Him,  portrays  His  central  import- 
ance for  the  race  by  using  this  prevalent  Jewish  idea  of  a 
heavenly  pre-existence.  He  was  before  Abraham  and 
all  the  prophets  in  God's  thought ;  they  were  but  indi- 
vidual instruments,  He  was  the  goal  of  their  endeavours. 
This  place  which  He  had  in  the  divine  plan  was  His 
pre-existence  ;  this  high  and  unshared  function  of  spiritual 
Messiahship,  appointed  to  Him  from  the  beginning,  was 
the  glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world 
was.  As  the  glory  which  He  prays  for  stands  in  neces- 
sary relation  to  His  Messianic  work  on  earth,  it  cannot 
have  really,  but  only  ideally,  existed  before  His  appear- 
ance among  men.^ 

Probably  on   first  reading  such   an  interpretation  we 
are  inclined  to  say  of  the  critic  as  Voltaire  said   of  the 

1  Wendt,  Teaching  of  Jesus,  vol.  ii.  168-178  ;  Beyschlag,  N.T.  Theology, 
vol.  i.  pp.  249-255. 

^  Beyschlag,  ibid.  p.  254.  See  Orr,  Christian  Viezu  of  God  and  the 
World,  pp.  278,  289-291. 


78  Christ' s  Sclf-Conscio2tsness  as  [Lect. 

prophet  Habakkuk,  that  he  is  "  capable  of  anything." 
It  is  futile  to  seek  to  refute  him  by  pointing  out  how 
unlikely  it  is  that  Christ  would  have  used  the  phrase 
"  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am,"  if  He  meant  merely  to 
contrast  Abraham's  actual  existence  with  His  own  ideal 
one,  or  that  He  would  have  spoken  of  returning  to  a 
glory  which  had  never  been  His,  and  was  only  now  about 
to  become  so.  An  easy  escape  is  found  in  insisting  on 
Jewish  forms  of  thought,  and  the  anachronism  of  import- 
ing our  Western  logic  into  the  fluent  expressions  of 
Oriental  mysticism.  If  we  are  to  argue  the  question 
of  Christ's  pre-existence  effectively,  we  must  go  farther 
back.  The  consciousness  of  it  rose  to  expression  only 
in  a  few  supreme  moments  of  His  life.  It  was  the 
culmination  of  His  self- witness.  Therefore  it  is  only 
when  recognised  as  involved  in,  and  necessarily  growing 
out  of,  those  other  more  obvious  forms  of  self-witness 
which  preceded  it,  that  it  becomes  credible  to  us ;  and 
more  than  credible,  imperative.  To  ascribe  to  Christ 
the  functions  of  perfect  revealer  of  the  Father,  of  a  unique 
Sonship  which  constitutes  Him  the  one  mediator  to  men 
of  true  spiritual  life,  of  ultimate  Judge  of  human  destinies: 
to  enthrone  Him  in  this  solitary  supremacy,  and  then  to 
demand  that  men  shall  not  accord  to  Him  the  homage 
which  is  due  only  to  an  eternal  Lord,  is  to  be  guilty  of  a 
gross  contradiction.  A  Christ  who,  according  to  Bey- 
schlag,  had  no  personal  existence  before  His  birth  in 
Bethlehem,  but  somehow  lived  "  in  the  heart  of  God,"  ^ 
has  no  reality  for  human  thought.  In  one  sense  we  may 
say  that  the  exegesis  which  refuses  to  find  His  pre- 
existence   in   these  passages  of  the   Fourth  Gospel   is  no 

^  Beyschlag,  N.  T.  Theology^  p.  259,  n. 


II.  J  interpreted  by  His  Claims  79 

more  forced  than  that  which  refuses  to  see  that  it  forms 
the  indispensable  pre-condition  of  the  total  demand  which 
He  makes  in  the  Synoptics.  If  we  can  fairly  explain  the 
latter  without  it,  we  can  explain  the  former  too.  It  would 
not  appreciably  affect  the  argument  though  the  Johannine 
verses  were  discovered  to  be  spurious,  any  more  than  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  affected  by  the  deletion 
of  the  "  Three  heavenly  witnesses."  ^  For  it  rests  not 
on  isolated  phrases,  but  on  the  inner  necessity  of  the 
relation  which  Christ,  with  the  unbroken  sense  of  carry- 
ing out  the  Father's  will,  assumes  towards  all  men.  The 
special  value  of  the  verses  is,  that  they  give  expression 
to  a  truth  without  which  other  truths  of  which  we  are 
already  persuaded  would  be  utterly  incomprehensible. 

The  endeavours  made  to  discredit  the  testimony  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  by  representing  it  as  a  theosophical 
romance,  composed  by  a  Greek  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
second  century,  have  practically  been  abandoned.  It  is 
now  perfectly  clear  that,  instead  of  being  a  philosophical 
treatise  on  the  dogma  of  the  Logos,  in  which  the  Gnostic 
antithesis  of  the  principles  of  light  and  darkness  is  worked 
out  in  the  form  of  an  idealised  picture  of  Christ's  life,  this 
Gospel  is  emphatically  a  historical  document,  grounded 
on  a  minute  knowledge  of  facts.  Not  merely  does  the 
writer  show  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  language, 
traditions,  modes  of  thought,  history,  and  customs  of  the 
Jewish  people,  but  he  describes  events  with  the  incidental 
touches  possible  only  to  an  eye-witness.^  During  recent 
years,  Lightfoot  ^  and  others  have  produced  an  enormous 

1  I  John  V.  7. 

-  Chaps,  vi.  10,  19,  23  ;  x.  22,  23  ;  xi.  r,  44,  54  ;  xxi.  2. 

^  Biblical  Essays^  pp.  1-198. 


8o  Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

accumulation  of  evidence,  both  external  and  internal, 
which  raises  to  a  high  degree  of  probability  the  ancient 
unbroken  tradition  of  the  Church,^  that  it  was  written  by 
the  Apostle  John.^ 

Notwithstanding  this,  however,  it   must  be  acknow- 
ledged   that   a   perplexing  problem   is   presented   by   the 
discourses.      The   difficulty  does   not  consist  in   the  sub- 
stance   of  their   teaching.       Wendt    has    unquestionably 
succeeded  in  showing  that,  with   all   their  divergence   in 
form,  they  present  the  same  fundamental   truths   as   the 
Synoptics,    though    his    rejection    of    the     transcendent 
element  in   Christ's   personality    leads  him   to  lower  the 
testimony  which  both  render.      The  real  difficulty  is  that 
Jesus  should  have  spoken  them  as  they  stand.      No  one 
can  doubt  that  the  short  pictorial  sayings  and  the  parables 
of  the  Synoptics  convey  the  impression  of  being  nearer 
to  an  actual  report  of  His  words ;  while  the  style  of  the 
discourses  is  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  the  Evangelist 
himself,  as  seen  in  the  narrative  part  of  the  Gospel  and 
in  John's   First  Epistle.      But  certain  distinctions  have  to 
be  made.       I.  The  doctrine  of  Christ  as  the  incarnate 
Logos,  which  is  set  forth  in  the  Prologue,  is  undoubtedly 
the  general  conception  which  underlies  the  whole  Gospel, 
and  determines  the  selection  of  the  materials.     But  though 
the  word  Logos  quite  answers  to  the  writer's  own  view  of 
Christ's  personality,  he  never  represents  it  as  employed 
by  Christ  Himself.      It   is  Jiis  interpretation,  not   Christ's 
declaration.^     The    discussions    in    which    the    Jews    so 
eagerly   take    part    as    to   Jesus'   personal   claim,  do  not 

^  The  one  exception,  hardly  worth  mentioning,  is  that  of  the  obscure  sect 
in  the  second  century,  known  as  the  Alogi. 
2  Note  7,  p.  392. 
^  See  Note  8,  p.  392,  "  Ilarnack  on  the  Prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel." 


n.]  interpreted  by  His  Clai7?is  8i 

turn  on  the  question  whether  He  is  the  incarnate  Word 
of  God,  but  whether  He  is  the  Messiah.  They  treat  of 
just  such  perplexities  as  would  arise  in  Jewish  minds 
regarding  His  relation  to  their  national  past,  its  traditions 
and  hopes.  It  is  this  historical  reference  which  really 
underlies  them,  though  it  is  sometimes  kept  in  reserve 
till,  as  it  were,  the  close  of  the  discussion,-^  because  Jesus 
insists  on  falling  back,  not  on  any  official  title,  as  vindi- 
cating His  inherent  dignity,  but  on  His  own  immediate 
consciousness  of  Sonship.  His  thought  moves  in  the 
sphere  of  direct  practical  experience.  One  can  see  how 
natural  it  was  that  the  profound  expression  of  His  own 
personality  should  arise  precisely  as  the  writer  describes, 
either  when  He  was  alone  with  "  His  own,"  or  in  converse 
with  disputants  who,  conscious  of  the  mysterious  authority 
which  He  claimed  in  God's  name,  yet,  hardened  against 
His  message,  sought  to  force  the  argument  into  a  con- 
troversy about  Himself.  Even  the  expressions  of  His  pre- 
existence  are  not  so  much  formal  declarations  as  intima- 
tions of  it,  springing  from  the  sudden  heightening  of  His 
consciousness  in  moments  of  intense  feeling.  2.  While 
John's  own  style  abounds  in  a  recurrence  of  simple 
and  abstract  terms,  such  as  life  and  light,  the  discourses 
themselves  are  full  of  picturesque  imagery.  The  manna, 
the  living  water,  the  bread  of  life,  the  good  shepherd,  the 
true  vine,  have  all  that  element  of  the  pictorial  and 
illustrative  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Synoptic  sayings.^ 

1  Chaps.  V.  39,  45  ff.  ;  vii.  26  ff.  40,  43  ;  viii.  56  ;  x.  24,  25.  The  demand  of 
the  Jews,  "How  long  dost  Thou  hold  us  in  suspense?  If  Thou  be  the  Christ, 
tell  us  plainly  "  (x.  24),  shows  that  they  were  dissatisfied  with  His  reiterated 
allusions  to  His  Sonship,  and  wanted  Him  to  "place"  Himself  definitely  in 
relation  to  their  Historic  Hope.     See  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  pp.  23,  24. 

*  Wendt,  Teaching  of  Jesus  ^  vol.  i.  pp.  11 7- 11 9. 

6 


82  Chrisfs  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

There  are  also  aphorisms  and  gnomic  phrases  closely 
allied  to  the  Synoptic  manner.  Though  uttered  prob- 
ably at  different  times,  they  have  been  brought  to- 
gether by  the  writer  as  if  they  formed  a  single  address. 
This  grouping  accounts  for  the  obvious  discontinuity 
of  many  passages,  and  has  helped  to  widen  the  apparent 
divergence  between  the  Fourth  and  the  First  Three 
Gospels. 

Making  all  allowance  for  these  considerations,  there 
remains  something  still  to  be  accounted  for.  The  rela- 
tion in  which  the  writer  stands  to  his  material  is  very 
different,  for  example,  from  that  of  Luke.  The  latter 
frankly  takes  up  the  position  of  a  compiler  from  docu- 
ments and  narratives  which  he  has  collected  and  verified. 
One  may,  indeed,  be  at  a  loss  to  know,  in  the  case  of  a 
saying  which  Luke  records  differently  from  Matthew, 
whether  the  divergence  is  to  be  attributed  to  him  or  to 
the  source  from  which  he  draws ;  but  he  leaves  us  in  no 
doubt  where  he  means  Christ's  sayings  to  begin  and  end. 
It  is  otherwise  with  the  Fourth  Evangelist.  In  the  third 
chapter  he  so  weaves  together  his  own  words  with  those 
of  Christ  and  of  John  the  Baptist,  that  it  will  probably 
never  be  certain  how  we  ought  to  assign  the  last  twenty 
verses;  yet  some  of  them  assuredly  are  the  Evangelist's 
own  comment.  This  fusion  runs  throughout  the  Gospel, 
though  it  is  seldom  so  easy  to  detect  as  here.  The 
author  is  not  a  compiler ;  he  is  a  reproducer  of  what  has 
come  under  his  own  eyes,  and  been  absorbed  into  his  life. 
Writing  some  fifty  or  sixty  years  after  his  fellowship 
with  Jesus,  a  thousand  incidents  and  details  of  that  un- 
forgetable  time  rise  vividly  before  him,  yet  he  sees  the 
whole  as  interpreted  by  the  spiritual  experience  of  the 


II.]  interp7'eted  by  His  Claims  ^'Xi 

intervening  period.^  The  time,  the  place,  the  circum- 
stances of  any  utterance  may  be  written  on  his  memory, 
but  the  utterance  itself  has  another  meaning  for  him  now. 
It  is  the  actual  historical  life  of  Jesus  that  he  is  dealing 
with,  but  he  looks  back  at  it  in  the  light  of  what  it  has 
since  proved  to  signify  for  the  Christian  Church  and  for 
himself.  His  Gospel  is  the  expression  of  that  deeper 
insight  which,  according  to  him,  Jesus  promised  when 
the  Spirit  should  bring  to  their  remembrance  all  that 
He  had  said  to  them.  This  remembrance  was  not 
the  mere  recollection  of  His  sayings,  but  the  spiritual 
illumination  of  them,  the  opening  up  of  their  inner 
purport  and  ultimate  significance ;  and  just  because  that 
significance  could  only  reveal  itself  through  personal 
experience,  they  reappear  with  a  certain  impress  of 
John's  individuality.  Thus,  intimate  as  his  knowledge 
is  of  the  earlier  stages  of  Christ's  ministry,  he  views  them 
from  a  later  standpoint.  The  entire  history  is  for  him  a 
completed  unity,  and  he  describes  the  beginning  of  it 
with  the  feeling  of  one  who  has  witnessed  the  close,  and 
by  much  brooding  reached  the  heart  of  the  secret.  The 
discourse  on  the  Bread  of  Life  in  the  sixth  chapter  has 
every  indication  of  being  a  genuine  saying  of  Christ,  in 
connection  with  the  miracle  of  the  loaves,  and  turning 
upon  the  story  of  the  Manna  which  came  down  from 
heaven ;  but  in  its  present  form  it  seems  to  be  inter- 
woven with  thoughts  drawn  by  John  from  his  recollection 

1  ' '  Words  which  seem  strange,  if  taken  to  have  been  uttered  by  Christ 
concerning  Himself,  are  at  once  seen  in  another  Hght  when  they  are  regarded 
as  coming  from  a  disciple,  and  as  revealing  the  after-influence  of  intercourse 
with  Him."  Weizsiicker,  Apostolic  Age,  vol.  ii.  p.  234.  This  principle 
certainly  applies  in  some  measure  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  though  one  may 
dissent  from  Weizsacker's  own  application  of  it 


84  Chrisi s  Se/f -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

of  the  Last  Supper.^  The  Evangelist's  comments  -  on 
the  interview  with  Nicodemus  are  plainly  such  reflections 
as  could  only  have  been  made  by  one  who  lived  in  a 
time  when  the  completed  Christian  faith  stood  forth  to 
claim  men's  homage,  and  divided  them  into  two  oppos- 
ing camps.  On  the  one  side  is  the  Church,  where  Christ's 
redeeming  power  is  manifest ;  on  the  other,  the  World 
which  rejects  Him,  because  it  loves  darkness  rather  than 
light.  This  is  the  outcome  and  issue,  as  John  now 
beholds  it  and  as  all  the  intervening  years  since  Pentecost 
had  shown  it,  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus  among  men. 
He  sees  that  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise,  that  the 
message  of  redemption  inevitably  awaked  antagonism 
from  those  who  had  no  affinity  for  the  Truth. 

So  deeply  is  this  idea  wrought  into  his  soul,  that  it 
dominates  his  retrospect  of  the  actual  ministry.  From 
first  to  last  his  Gospel  dwells  on  the  hatred  and  captious 
opposition  of  "  the  Jews  " ;  and  then,  in  contrast  to  these, 
we  have  Christ's  fellowship  with  "  His  own."  We  natur- 
ally ask.  How  did  Christ  gain  "His  own"?  By  what 
means  did  He  secure  their  allegiance?  They  were  not 
His  at  first ;  how  came  they  to  attach  themselves  so 
utterly  to  Him?  It  was  not  by  His  simply  declaring, 
"  I  am  the  Son  of  God,"  but  by  the  gracious  and  wonder- 
ful human  life  which  the  Synoptic  account  portrays, 
and  which  irresistibly  drew  them  to  the  confession  of  His 
lordship.  His  direct  personal  claim  could  not  come 
first;  it  required  for  its  basis  and  interpretation  living 
words  and    deeds  that  appealed   to  the  hearts  of  men. 

^  Chap.  vi.   51-56.     See  Note  9,  p.  393,  on  the  Baptist's  designatii)n  of 
Jesus  as  "  The  Lamb  of  God." 
2  Chap.  iii.  19-21. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  85 

The  tenderness  and  compasslonateness  of  Jesus  as  the 
"  Friend  of  Sinners  "  is  very  sHghtly  represented  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  But  it  formed  part  of  the  common 
tradition  of  the  Church  ;  and  with  that,  if  not  with  the 
First  Three  Gospels  as  we  possess  them,  the  writer  was 
familiar.  His  purpose  was  not  to  repeat  what  was 
already  known  concerning  the  process  by  which  Christ 
gained  men  to  Himself,  but  to  gather  together  the 
incidents  and  sayings  that  revealed  the  divine  greatness 
of  His  personality  as  the  Eternal  Saviour.  For  this 
reason  the  general  Fatherhood  of  God  is  not  depicted 
as  it  is  in  the  Synoptics ;  but  rather  that  Fatherhood 
as  it  exists  only  for  those  who  through  Christ  the  Son 
have  received  the  spiiHt  of  Sonship.  It  is  this  special 
aspect  that  John  emphasises,  not  as  contradicting  the 
other,  but  as  completing  it.^  In  the  picture  which  he 
gives  of  the  people  among  whom  Jesus  moved,  both  the 
lights  and  the  shades  are  fiercer  than  in  the  Synoptics, 
just  because  the  history  of  Christ's  life  is  written  with  the 
deep  consciousness  of  the  separation  which  that  life  now 
fully  revealed  has  made  between  souls,  deepening  the 
darkness  of  those  who  oppose,  and  enriching  all  who 
welcome  it  with  unspeakable  treasures  of  joy  and  peace. 
The  conversational  character  of  the  Gospel^  shows  that 
it  was  composed  primarily  to  meet  the  needs  and  ques- 
tionings of  John's  own  disciples  at  Ephesus ;  and  so  it 
brings  out  the  present  and  enduring  relation  of  Christ 
to  believers  who  had  never  seen  Him  in  the  flesh. 
Hence  it  is  peculiarly  the  Gospel  beloved  by  "  His  own  " 

*See  Note  10,  p.  395,  "The  Fatherhood  of  God  in  the  Synoptics  and  in 
St.  John." 

"^  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  p.  197. 


86  Christ's  Self -Consciousness  as  [Lect. 

in  all  ages,  while  it  is  naturally  repudiated  as  "  poor 
stuff"  ^  by  those  who  have  not  been  already  won  through 
the  Synoptic  account  to  the  acknowledgment  of  His 
unique  lordship. 

From  all  this  it  is  perfectly  clear  what  place  it  ought 
to  hold  in  the  study  of  the  self-revelation  of  Jesus. 
Though  giving  the  general  chronology  of  His  life  more 
fully  and  precisely  than  the  Synoptics,  it  does  not  show, 
as  they  do  in  a  manner,  the  actual  development  of  His 
teaching.  Loosely  as  they  sit  to  the  detailed  order  of 
events,  yet  they  make  clear  the  means  whereby  He  led 
up  to  the  turning-point  of  His  ministry, — the  confession 
of  His  Messiahship,  and  the  first  definite  intimation  of 
His  approaching  death.^  It  is  to  them  we  must  refer 
if  we  would  ascertain,  not  only  the  process  by  which 
Christ  secured,  in  the  beginning  of  His  intercourse,  the 
disciples'  love  and  loyalty,  but  also  the  general  views 
which  they  had  of  Him  up  to  the  close  of  His  ministry, 
and  even  in  the  earliest  days  of  the  Christian  Church. 
We  can  see  from  the  addresses  of  Peter  in  the  opening 
chapters  of  Acts,  that  their  faith  grew  out  of  just  such 
teaching  as  is  contained  in  the  Synoptics.  The  sayings 
which  John  records  had  in  substance  been  spoken  by 
the  Lord,  but  they  had  not  been  assimilated  by  the 
apostles.  Their  profound  inwardness  needed,  not  merely 
the  illumination  of  the  Spirit  bestowed  at  Pentecost,  but 
a  certain  affinity  of  soul,  and  the  receptivity  that  only 
comes  from  a  deepening  personal  experience  of  Christian 
struggle  and  triumph.  John  himself  could  not  have 
reproduced  them  as  they  stand  in  his  Gospel  till  through 

*  J.  S.  Mill,  Essays  on  Kcligion,  p.  254, 

*  Matt.  xvi.  13-23;  Mark  viii.  27-33;  Luke  ix.  iS-22. 


II.]  interpreted  by  His  Claims  87 

long  meditation  and  service  he  had  appropriated  and 
absorbed  them.  We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  they 
had  a  place  in  the  earliest  traditions  of  the  Church 
regarding  Jesus,  like  so  much  of  the  Synoptic  account. 
Some  of  them  may  have  been  known  and  current,  but 
the  general  representation  as  given  by  John  was  certainly 
not.  He  did  not  gather  them  from  tradition :  they 
were  his  own  recollections.  He  had  treasured  them  in 
his  heart,  and  he  brought  them  forth  at  last,  interpreted 
by  his  spiritual  verification  of  them,  for  the  instruction 
of  believers  who  had  already  reached  their  faith  in 
Christ  along  other  lines. 


LECTURE    III. 

THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRIST'S  SELF-CONSCIOUS- 
NESS, AND  THE  METHOD  OF  HIS  SELF- 
MANIFESTATION.    JESUS  AND  THE  TWELVE. 


8y 


SYNOPSIS. 

Importance  of  studying  the  method  zxi^  order  of  the  self-revelation  of  Jesus. 

I.  The  Growth  of  His  own  thought. 

1.  As  regards  His  Messiahship. 

Unlikely   that  His  consciousness   of  it  was  awaked  only  at    His 
Baptism. 

2.  As  regards  His  Death. 
Improbabihty  of  Wendt's  view. 

Cannot  say  a  priori  what  Jesus,  as  the  incarnate  Son,  must  have 
known. 

H.   His  Self-manifestation  to  men. 

A.  The  Threefold  means  He  employed. 

1.  Teaching. 

Dealt  first  with  the  basal  conceptions  of  God  and  man  as  Father 

and  child. 
His  purpose  not  to  impart  ideas,  but  to  mould  character. 
His  teaching,   therefore,  suggestive  and  germinal,   not  didactic ; 

but  more  '  authoritative '  on  this  account. 

2.  Miracles. 

That  Jesus  claimed  to  work  them,  quite  certain. 
Not  to  be  judged  in  vacuo. 

Jesus'  sinlessness  and  the  argument  from  the  uniformity  ot  nature. 
The  miracles  as  expressions  of  His  character  and  mission. 
Have  a  place  only  in  a  disorganised  world. 

The  miraculous  in  Christianity  more  credible  if  found  in  the 
physical  as  well  as  the  moral  sphere. 

3.  The  Influence  of  His  Personal  Presence. 
Its  subtle  power  in  shaping  character. 

B.  The  existence  of  a  Special  Circle  on  whom  these  three  factors  con- 
tinuously operated. 

The  Apostolate  a  necessity. 

The  Twelve,  a  school ;  but  a  school  in  the  world. 

The  Crisis — the  acknowledgment  by  Jesus  of  His  Messiahship  : 
effect  on  His  subsequent  intercourse  with  the  disciples. 

The  potency  of  His  method  lay  in  its  indirectness. 


90 


LECTURE    III. 

The  Growth  of  Christ's  Self-consciousness,  and 
THE  Method  of  His  Self-Manifestation. 
Jesus  and  the  Twelve. 

In  passing  from  the  discussion  of  the  manifold  and 
imperious  claims  made  by  Jesus  to  the  progressive 
account  of  His  life  as  it  stands  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
we  are  conscious  of  a  great  contrast.  It  is  the  difference 
between  a  completed  revelation  and  a  revelation  in 
process.  The  question  that  supremely  concerns  us  as 
we  look  back  on  the  appearance  among  men  of  this 
unique  Personality  is,  What  was  His  real  significance? 
What  was  the  total  purport  and  outcome  of  His  mission  ? 
And  the  answer  to  that  necessarily  lies  in  the  later 
stages  of  His  work,  when  the  truths  which  it  embodies 
rise  to  more  explicit  utterance.  The  consequence  is  that 
the  earlier  and  preparatory  period  is  apt  to  lose  its 
proper  place,  in  one  of  two  ways.  Either  we  read  into 
it  the  developed  thoughts  that  belong  to  the  close,  and 
thus  fail  to  do  justice  to  the  slow  and  natural  growth  of 
the  revelation  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  recognising  that  it 
largely  consists  of  hints  and  half  suggestions,  we  dis- 
parage its  value  as  compared  with  the  fully  unfolded 
message.  But  to  act  thus  is  not  only  to  be  untrue  to 
the  facts,  it  is  a  serious  detriment  to   our  own  under- 

91 


92  Growth  of  Christ's  Self-Conscio7isncss    [Lcct. 

standing  of  Christ's  mission.  It  obscures  from  us  the 
method  by  which  He  led  men  to  the  recognition  of  His 
indispensableness  to  their  spiritual  life.  It  was  not  by 
overt  and  unmistakable  announcements  of  His  Person 
that  He  won  their  homage,  but  by  the  subtle  authori- 
tativeness  which  penetrated  His  gracious  invitations,  His 
warnings.  His  works  of  healing.  His  daily  intercourse. 
It  is  quite  as  true  to  say  that  they  discovered  Him,  as 
that  He  revealed  Himself. 

Nor  is  this  method  in  His  self-revelation  important 
merely  from  a  historical  point  of  view.  It  is  an  indica- 
tion of  the  way  in  which  Christ  has  always  to  be 
approached,  if  we  are  rightly  to  recognise  His  supremacy 
over  us.  The  record  of  the  time  when  He  went  about 
doing  good,  and  the  people,  astonished  at  His  marvellous 
sayings  and  deeds,  asked  wonderingly  whether  He  were 
the  Great  Prophet  or  not,  is  no  mere  scaffolding  which 
was  of  use  till  the  edifice  was  completed  and  may  now 
be  discarded.  It  is  a  part  of  the  building  itself,  of  the 
self-manifestation  whereby  He  was  to  draw  all  men  unto 
Him.  And  it  is  because  so  many  form  their  conception 
of  Christ  simply  from  the  perfected  shape  which  His 
claims  assumed  in  the  last  days  of  His  ministry,  or  still 
more  from  the  dogmatic  form  in  which  the  Church 
presents  them,  that  they  repudiate  or  treat  with  indiffer- 
ence an  authority  which  seems  to  them  abstract  and 
dictatorial.  Authority  is  not,  in  Christ's  case,  the  first 
word,  but  rather  the  last ;  it  is  not  so  much  a  right 
imposed,  as  a  supremacy  finally  acknowledged  as  the 
result  of  a   growing  and   irrepressible  conviction. 

I.  But  before  considering  the  gradual  development 
in  Christ's   method   of  self-manifestation,  there  is  a  prior 


III.]        Groivtk  of  Chris fs  Se/f -Consciousness         93 

question.  Was  this  development  due  to  His  own  self- 
restraint  and  conscious  adaptation  of  truth  to  the  needs 
of  others,  or  was  it  the  expression  of  His  own  slowly 
deepening  insight  into  His  message  ?  There  are  certain 
theories  on  the  subject  which  are  plainly  impossible, 
if  any  historicity  attaches  to  the  Gospel  accounts. 
Dr.  Martineau's  contention,  that  Jesus  Himself  never 
claimed  to  be  the  Messiah,  and  that  the  name  was 
subsequently  "palmed  upon"  Him  by  His  followers, 
has  hardly  a  vestige  of  plausibility;^  and  one  can  only 
marvel  at  Schenkel's  view,  that  He  adopted  the  title  at 
a  late  stage  as  an  accommodation  to  the  popular  ex- 
pectation. It  was  precisely  His  refusal  to  accommodate 
Himself  to  prevalent  ideas  which  led  to  His  rejection 
and  death.  It  has  become  more  and  more  clear  that 
He  had  from  the  beginning  of  His  public  life  the  same 
spiritual  conception  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  of  His 
own  central  relation  to  it  which  dominated  Him  to  the 
end.  There  is  undoubtedly  a  progress  throughout  in  the 
unfolding  of  its  content  and  application,  especially  in  its 
personal  reference,  but  there  is  no  departure  from  the 
essential  standpoint  of  His  earlier  Galilean  Gospel.  The 
inward,  ethical,  and  universal  quality  in  His  teaching  is 
present  from  the  first. 

I.  It  seems  to  me  doubtful  whether  we  are  warranted 
even  in  saying  that  His  Messianic  consciousness  was  born 

^  "  Some  critics  have  called  in  question  the  fact  that  Jesus  called  Himself 
Messiah.  But  this  article  of  the  Evangelic  tradition  seems  to  me  to  stand  the 
test  of  the  most  minute  investigation."  Harnack,  History  of  Dogma,  vol.  i. 
p.  63,  n.  •'  Historically  considered,  the  calling  which  Jesus  embraced,  and 
with  which  was  bound  up  His  significance  for  the  world,  was  and  could  be  no 
other  than  to  be  the  Messiah  of  His  people."  Weiss,  Life  of  Christy  vol.  i. 
p.  295. 


94  Groivth  of  Chrisf  s  Self -Consciousness    [Lect. 

only  at  the  moment  of  His  Baptism.^  We  lack,  indeed, 
the  historical  data  which  would  enable  us "  absolutely  to 
determine  the  point ;  but  psychological  probabilities  are 
on  the  other  side.  We  have  seen  that  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  as  it  manifested  itself  in  His  public 
life,  implied  that  He  had  maintained  from  His  earliest 
childhood  an  unclouded  filial  relation  to  God.  But  if 
there  never  was  a  time,  as  Wendt  admits,  when  He  did 
not  know  Himself  as  the  Son  of  God,  what  was  the 
transformation  which  His  idea  of  Sonship  underwent  at 
His  Baptism  ?  "  Whilst  hitherto,"  Wendt  says,  "  Jesus 
had  been  conscious  of  no  peculiar  excellence  which 
exalted  Him  above  others  in  respect  to  His  religious 
views,  experiences,  and  acts,  and  that  just  because  they 
appeared  to  Him  so  simple,  normal,  and  self-evident, 
now,  all  at  once.  He  recognised  the  import  of  these 
qualities..  He  saw  in  them  not  merely  a  specific  advance 
beyond  the  religious  standpoint  of  His  countrymen,  but 
also  the  first  and  supreme  realisation  of  that  ideal  rela- 
tionship between  God  and  men  foretold  in  Scripture  as 
characteristic  of  the  Messianic  time."  Such  a  picture  as 
Wendt  here  gives  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  in  His 
preparatory  period  has  an  inherent  unlikelihood.  He 
grew  up  with  the  profoundest  sense  of  uninterrupted 
union  with  the  Father,  of  joyful  and  childlike  obedience 
to  His  will  in  every  detail  of  inward  and  outward  life; 
and  yet  it  never  seemed  to  Him  that  His  experience 
separated  Him  from  others,  it  "appeared  to  Him  so 
simple,  normal,  and  self-evident."  Normal  it  may  have 
been   in   a   high    ideal   sense   of   the  word,  as    the  only 

^  So  Wendt,    Teaching  of  Jesus,  vol.  i.   pp.    99-101;    Beyschlag,  N.T. 
Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  58. 


HI. J        Growth  of  Chris f  s  Self-Conscioitsness         95 

experience  which  accorded  with  the  divine  purpose 
regarding  humanity ;  but  that  could  not  possibly  blind 
Him  to  the  fact  that  in  this  sense  all  other  lives  were 
<7^normal.  A  man's  superior  goodness  does  not  hinder 
him  from  perceiving  in  others  faults  from  which  he  him- 
self is  free,  it  rather  quickens  his  insight  into  the  defects 
which  by  brotherly  sympathy  he  strives  to  remove.  And 
the  perfect  purity  of  Jesus  made  Him  sensitive,  to  an 
incomparable  degree,  to  the  least  marks  of  wilfulness  in 
the  conduct  of  those  around  Him.  He  detected  selfish- 
ness where  it  was  unfelt  by  other  souls ;  and  it  smote 
Him  with  a  keener  pang  from  His  own  intense  and 
unreserved  devotion  to  the  Father.  When  He  wor- 
shipped in  the  synagogue,  its  prayers  were  no  adequate 
utterance  of  His  own  aspiration  and  divine  communion. 
The  piercing  cries  of  abasement  in  which  the  psalmists 
and  prophets  gave  voice  to  the  deepest  consciousness  of 
men  before  the  Holy  One  found  in  Him  no  echo.  "  His 
soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart "  in  a  region  un- 
entered by  the  saints  of  old.  At  every  turn  and  stage 
of  His  life  this  isolation  was  brought  home  to  Him. 
Can  we  imagine  that  He  passed  through  an  experience 
like  this,  continuing  unbroken,  but  growing  ever  deeper 
and  fuller,  through  childhood  and  youth  up  to  the 
maturity  of  thirty  years,  without  asking  Himself  what 
the  meaning  of  it  was,  and  why  He  had  been  chosen 
of  God  for  so  special  a  heritage  ?  And  when  He 
turned  to  those  Scriptures  which  enshrined  God's  highest 
revelations  of  Himself  in  the  past,  He  found  in  His 
own  consciousness  of  inward  righteousness  and  harmony 
with  God  the  explanation  of  that  salvation  which  the 
purest  souls  so  passionately  longed   for,  but  which  they 


96  Grozvth  of  Chrisfs  Self- Consciousness    [Lect. 

declared   could   only  be   attained   at   the   coming  of  the 
Messiah. 

Thus  His  own  unique  experience  and  the  Messianic 
Hope  mutually  interpreted  one  another.  His  own 
consciousness  taught  Him  that  the  redemption  which 
the  prophets  foretold  was  not  external  or  national, 
but  personal  and  spiritual,  was,  in  fact,  just  the  bless- 
ing which  He  already  possessed  of  unimpaired  com- 
munion with  God ;  and  so,  conversely,  the  great  Jewish 
Hope  so  long  and  profoundly  cherished  made  clear 
to  Him  that  the  gift  granted  at  present  to  Him 
alone  was  no  individual  boon,  but  given  that  He 
might  mediate  it.  As  Jesus'  consciousness  of  His 
Messiahship  grew  out  of,  and  was  inwardly  determined 
by,  His  permanent  consciousness  of  Sonship,  His  con- 
ception of  the  Messianic  kingdom  rejected  from  first 
to  last  all  the  merely  outward  and  earthly  elements 
which   mingled   with  the    historic    and    traditional    view 

of  it. 

Now  what  plausible  reason  is  there  to  suppose 
that  the  Baptism  was  the  birth-hour  of  this  Messianic 
conviction  ?  That  the  Evangelists  are  practically 
silent^  regarding  the  previous  stages  of  His  life  is  no 
proof.  The  attestation  of  His  unique  Sonship,  which 
is  represented  as  given  Him  at  His  Baptism,  is  again 
given  in    precisely    similar    fashion    at    His    Transfigura- 

1  In  the  one  scene  recorded  belonging  to  this  period  (Luke  ii.  41-5 0.  the 
words  of  Jesus'  reply,  iv  roh  rod  Trarpos  fiou,  following  upon  Mary's  phrase, 
"Thy  father,"  as  applied  to  Joseph,  appear  to  involve  a  certain  unique 
consciousness  of  Sonship  to  God,  but  cannot  be  said  of  themselves  to  imply 
a  consciousness  either  properly  Messianic  or  properly  Divine.  (See  Gore, 
Dissertations,  p.  78,  «.  I.)  They  are  best  described,  perhaps,  as  indicating, 
to  use  Godet's  expression,  "  the  first  revelation  of  a  relation  which  surpassed 
all  that  Judaism  had  realised." 


III.]        Groivt  It  of  Chrisfs  Self -Consciousness         97 

tion.^  It  was  evidently  awaked  in  Him  with  exceptional 
intensity  at  certain  supreme  moments,  when,  as  it  were,  He 
consecrated  Himself  afresh  to  His  mission.  Just  as  in  the 
Transfiguration  He  received  only  a  renewed  confirma- 
tion of  the  assurance,  so  in  all  probability  the  Baptism 
merely  corroborated  the  dominant  thought  in  His  heart. 
The  attempt  to  portray  in  any  other  way  the  conditions 
of  Christ's  mature  thought  prior  to  His  ministry  results  in 
confusion ;  for  it  attributes  what  must  have  been  a  sense 
of  unique  Sonship  to  One  who  could  render  to  Himself 
no  rational  account  of  His  exceptional  nature  and  its 
relation  to  others.  To  say  with  Godet^  that  a  knowledge 
of  Himself  and  His  special  function  would  not  have  been 
compatible  with  the  accomplishment  of  the  task  assigned 
to  the  first  period  of  His  life,  is  quite  unwarrantable 
Would  His  consciousness  of  divine  Sonship  have  rendered 
it  impossible  for  Jesus  during  the  silent  years  to  dis- 
charge His  duty  in  the  home  and  the  carpenter's  shop? 
Would  He  have  been  so  possessed  by  the  thought  of  His 
future  mission  that  He  would  have  fretted  impatiently 
at  the  meaner  tasks  prescribed  Him  ?  But  the  Messiah 
was  not  one  who  took  His  office  on  Himself;  He  was 
chosen  for  it :  and  the  assurance  of  God's  choice  of  Jesus 
was  begotten  within  Him  through  the  feeling  of  His 
absolute  filial  surrender  to  the  Father's  will.  It  was 
that  Will  which  determined  His  steps,  which  appointed 
to  Him  as  surely  the  preparatory  stage,  as  it  fixed  the 
hour  when  that  stage  should  close ;  and  it  was  under  the 
guiding   of  that  Will   alone   that   He  went   forth   to   be 

1  See  Note  H,  p.  397,  "The  Attestation  of  Jesus'  Sonship  at  the  Baptism 
and  the  Transfiguration." 

"  Comni.  on  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  399. 

7 


98  Groii)th  of  Chrisfs  SeIf-Conscio7isness     [Lect. 

baptized  of  John  in  Jordan.  The  consciousness  of  His 
Messiahship,  instead  of  impairing  His  implicit  submission 
to  God  in  the  details  of  a  humble  and  withdrawn  life, 
would  have  confirmed  and  deepened  it.  As  He  Himself 
said  in  later  days,  "  I  do  nothing  of  Myself;  as  the 
Father  hath  said  unto  Me,  so  I  speak." 

I  must  therefore  hold  with  Weiss  that  Jesus  was 
sure  of  His  Messianic  calling  before  He  reached  the 
Jordan.  The  Baptism  was  remarkable,  not  as  the  hour 
in  which  His  Messianic  consciousness  was  born,  but  as 
the  hour  when  under  the  solemn  designation  of  the 
last  of  the  prophets  He  consecrated  Himself  to  the 
mission  which  was  now  to  begin  ;  and  received  not  only 
a  fresh  attestation  of  His  call,  but  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 
needed  for  its  fulfilment.  There  is  no  contradiction  in 
supposing  that  He  was  aware  of  His  Messiahship  before 
the  special  endowment  required  for  realising  it  was 
conferred.  The  thought  of  the  future  would  be  no 
burden  to  One  who  so  utterly  knew  the  Father,  and 
knew  also  that  according  to  His  day  His  strength 
should  be.  It  is  this  childlike  surrender  which  is  the 
key  of  the  whole.  The  Spirit  which  descended  and,  in 
the  Baptist's  vision,  rested  ^  upon  Him  was  to  be  His  con- 
stant possession,  "  enabling  Him  to  say  and  do  what  was 
needful  for  His  Messianic  calling,  and  what  with  ordi- 
nary human  capacities  He  could  not  have  attempted. '"- 
It  was  precisely  this  fresh  gift  of  divine  power  which 
created  the  Temptation ;  not  merely  the  fact  that  He 
was  on  the  eve  of  His  great  redemptive  work,  but  the 
new  consciousness  of  supernatural  endowment  as  regards 

^  Jolin  i.  32,  ^/xeivev.     Sec  Weslcott,  tn  loc, 
"  Weiss,  L(/'e  of  Christ,  vol.  i.  p.  327. 


III.]        Growth  of  Christ's  Self-Consciottsness         99 

both  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  sphere,  driving  Him 
to  self-searching  and  the  resolved  consecration  of  it  to 
purely  Messianic  ends. 

2.  Again,  it  is  asserted  by  many  as  a  certain  and 
almost  self-evident  fact  that  Jesus,  though  conscious, 
from  the  beginning  of  His  mission,  of  its  Messianic 
character,  did  not  anticipate  that  it  would  involve  the 
surrender  of  His  own  life ;  that  the  cruel  death  which 
fell  to  His  lot  was  only  borne  in  upon  Him  as  a 
necessity  through  the  experience  of  disappointment  and 
embittered  antagonism,  and  that  however  clearly  He 
may  have  seen  that  trial  and  renunciation  would  have 
to  be  endured  by  Himself  as  well  as  His  followers,  yet 
this  coexisted  at  first  with  the  joyful  hope  that  He 
would  ultimately  obtain  in  His  earthly  life  the  gratitude 
and  recognition  of  men.^  Now,  while  it  is  plain  from  all 
the  records  we  possess  that  the  earliest  definite  an- 
nouncement of  the  death  was  made  at  Csesarea  Philippi, 
on  the  occasion  of  Peter's  confession,  yet  that  Jesus 
had  previously  forecast  it  in  veiled  forms  is  almost  a 
certainty.  The  Synoptics  tell  us  that  He  spoke  in 
the  midst  of  His  ministry  in  Eastern  Galilee  of  a  sad 
time  coming  for  His  disciples  when  the  bridegroom 
should  be  taken  away.^  As  they  do  not  touch  upon 
the  first  part  of  His  life  spent  in  Judaea  we  cannot  use 
them  to  test  the  statements  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which 
represents  Him  as  speaking  at  His  first  Passover,  only 
a  month  or  two  after  the  Temptation,  of  a  temple 
which  if  destroyed  He  should  raise  again   in   three  days, 

^  Wendt,  Teaching  of  Jesus, \o\.  ii.  pp.  219-221.     Cf.  Baldensperger,  Das 
Selbsibewiisstsein  Jesii. 

^  Matt.  ix.  15  ;  Mark  ii.  20  ;  Luke  v.  35. 


lOO        Growth  of  Christ's  Self-Consciotcsness     [Lect. 

and  of  a  lifting  up  of  the  Son  of  Man  like  unto  that  of 
the  brazen  serpent  in  the  wilderness.^  Possibly  there  is 
in  the  words  "  in  three  days  "  a  certain  "  reading  back  " 
from  later  experiences,  as  in  other  Johannine  phrases ; 
but  it  is  worth  noting  that  these  two  expressions  in 
John  have  precisely  the  same  indirect  and  half-hidden 
reference  that  belongs  to  the  above  Synoptic  saying, 
which  unquestionably  could  not  be  the  only  one  uttered 
by  our  Lord  on  so  mysterious  a  subject  in  the  pre- 
paratory  months. 

But  even  if  the  evidence  of  these  dim  forecastings 
were  much  weaker  than  it  is,  it  would  not  prove  that 
He  was  Himself  ignorant  of  the  fate  in  store  for  Him. 
No  blunder  could  be  more  glaring  than  to  judge  of  His 
knowledge  of  His  mission  at  any  point  by  the  degree 
in  which  He  communicated  it  to  others.  It  is  not  from 
His  teaching,  so  largely  determined  as  it  was  by  the 
need  of  adaptation  to  the  imperfect  capacities  of  His 
followers,  but  from  a  consideration  of  what  He  was  in 
His  unique  moral  nature,  and  of  what,  being  what  He 
was,  intercourse  with  men  meant  for  Him,  that  we  must 
form  our  conception  of  His  thought.  Now  the  opposi- 
tion, which  as  it  gathered  to  a  head  is  supposed  to  have 
convinced  Jesus  of  the  inevitableness  of  His  violent 
death,  was  present  in  some  sense  as  early  as  we  have 
any  record  of  His  work.  It  declared  itself  in  the 
synagogue  of  Nazareth^  at  the  very  opening  of  that 
Galilean  period  which  seems  bathed  in  such  an  air  of 
graciousncss  and  hope ;  and  though  it  then  took  merely 
the  form  of  local  jealousy,  Jesus  could  not  fail  to  see 
that    this    was    but   one   expression    of   the    deep-rooted 

*  Chaps,  ii.  19,  iii.  14.  -  Luke  iv.  16-30. 


III.]        Growth  of  Chrisfs  Self -Consciousness       loi 

selfishness  of  the  human  heart  which  in  many  forms 
would  thrust  itself  across  His  path.  He  was  in  no 
danger  of  mistaking  the  enthusiasm  of  the  multitude  for 
a  permanent  attachment  to  His  message,  knowing  that 
many  of  the  harder  and  profounder  aspects  of  His 
Truth  had  yet  to  be  revealed ;  and  just  when  this 
enthusiasm  was  at  its  height,  the  ever-recurring  captious- 
ness  of  the  Pharisees  was  a  reminder  of  the  sleepless  foe 
that  dogged  His  steps.  If  such  was  the  reception  that 
He  met  with  even  in  the  Northern  province,  where  the 
people  breathed  a  freer  and  less  prejudiced  atmosphere, 
can  anyone  imagine  that  the  marks  of  hostility  were 
less  manifest  during  His  visit  to  Jerusalem  at  the  first 
Passover,  or  during  the  period,  possibly  extending  to 
eight  months,  spent  by  Him  in  Judsea,  of  which  nothing 
but  the  bare  mention  survives  ?  ^  To  speak  as  if  Jesus 
had  to  wait  till  the  suspicion  and  hatred,  which  were 
constantly  showing  themselves  in  individual  cases,  had 
assumed  bold  dimensions  before  He  could  be  convinced 
of  the  issue,  is  to  attribute  to  Him  an  extraordinary 
blindness  to  the  moral  facts  and  tendencies  of  life.  A 
great  soul  does  not  require  this  compulsory  teaching; 
it  divines   afar   off      It   can   pierce   through  the  slighter 

1  John  iii.  22,  iv.  1-3.  If  any  historical  value  at  all  belongs  to  the  earlier 
chapters  of  John's  Gospel  as  a  record  of  what  took  place  at  the  opening  of 
the  ministry,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  when  Jesus  left  Judaea  for  Galilee 
He  had  already  surrendered  all  hope  of  recognition  by  the  representatives  of 
the  nation.  They  had  not  indeed  rejected  Him  formally  as  the  Messiah,  for 
His  Messiahship  was  not  then  acknowledged  by  Him ;  but  they  had 
repudiated  teaching  which  essentially  involved  it.  Any  success  which  He 
might  henceforth  attain  in  Northern  Palestine  would  not  conciliate  but 
strengthen  the  opposition  of  the  hierarchy  in  the  capital  ;  so  that  He  actually 
began  His  GaHlean  ministry  with  the  deep  consciousness  of  His  ultimate 
rejection.  See  Weiss,  sttpra,  vol.  i.  p.  387  {i.  ;  EUicott,  Huhean  Lectures, 
p,  203  and  passim. 


102       Growth  of  Christ's  Sclf-Conscioitsness    [Lect. 

incidents  of  conduct  to  their  essential  significance  and 
the  spirit  that  underlies  them  :  it  is  surer  of  its  con- 
clusion from  one  ominous  fact  than  the  common  mind 
is  after  the  most  obvious  demonstration.  This  is  the 
prophetic  gift  :  it  has  /(?r^sight  because  it  has  2;2sight. 
It  sees  the  inevitable  issue  of  a  certain  course  of  life, 
because  it  knows  the  laws  of  the  moral  universe  and 
discerns  the  bias  of  the  personal  character.  It  was  this 
which  enabled  the  Old  Testament  seers  to  foretell  the 
destruction  of  a  faithless  Jerusalem.  And  it  was  this 
quality  which  Jesus  possessed  in  a  supreme  degree,  and 
in  virtue  of  which  He  knew  what  was  in  man.^ 

Further,  the  fate  of  so  many  of  the  great  prophets  of 
old,  and  the  despite  done  to  them  by  the  Jewish  people, 
were  not  thoughts  hidden  from  Him  till  the  close  drew 
near.  Whatever  forewarnings  their  history  conveyed 
regarding  Himself  were  surely  as  clear  to  Him  when  He 
pronounced  the  Beatitude  on  those  suffering  for  righteous- 
ness' sake, — "  for  so  persecuted  they  the  prophets  which 
were  before  you," — as  when  at  last  He  upbraided 
Jerusalem  with  the  murder  of  God's  servants.^  How 
could  He  expect  to  escape  what  the  prophets  suffered, 
when  He  not  only  rebuked  as  they  did  the  vices  of  the 
age,  but  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah  in  a  sense  which  ran 
straight  in  the  teeth  of  the  traditional  Hope  of  the  race, 
and  which  by  condemning  the  externalism  of  the  pre- 
vailing religion  could  not  but  incur  the  undying  enmity 
of  a  powerful  officialism  ? 

The   theory   that   Jesus    began    His   mission    in   the 

^  On    the   relation   of  the  prophetic   to   the   divine   element   in    Christ's 
knowledge,  see  Note  13,  p.  398. 

2  Matt,  xxiii.  37  ;  Luke  xiii.  33  ;  cf.  xi.  47-51. 


III.]        Growth  of  Christ's  Self-Consciottsness       103 

hope  of  "  a  peaceful,  regular  expansion  of  His  teaching 
and  of  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God  thereby," 
seems  incompatible  with  His  conception  of  His  Messiah- 
ship  as  we  know  it  to  have  been.  For  that  conception  only 
grew  up  through  the  consciousness  of  His  unique  Sonship, 
and  had  for  its  central  point  the  mediation  of  the  filial 
spirit  to  others.  But  this  mediation  could  not  be  effected 
by  mere  teaching;  it  involved  a  personal  identification 
with  the  sinful  in  their  sufferings.  This  was  the  chief 
channel  whereby,  through  the  manifestation  of  His 
sympathy  with  them.  He  awoke  in  them  susceptibility 
and  response  to  the  spirit  He  sought  to  impart.  The 
one  fact  which  stood  out  above  all  others  in  the  thoughts 

o 

of  the  people  regarding  Him,  and  which  thrilled  them 
with  a  joyful  astonishment,  was  just  that  One  who  so 
plainly  spoke  with  the  authority  of  a  prophet  of  God, 
yet  took  His  place  by  the  side  of  the  outcast  and 
distressed  as  a  healer  and  a  brother  born  for  adversity. 
If,  therefore,  it  was  only  by  entering  into  the  fellow- 
ship of  their  sorrow  that  He  could  heal  the  hurt  of  the 
soul,  then  with  His  profound  sense  of  the  alienation  of 
men  from  God  must  have  arisen  an  equally  profound 
sense  of  the  depth  of  the  humiliation  into  which  He 
must  descend  for  their  deliverance.  If  the  Evangelical 
Prophet  long  before  saw  that  only  through  the  voluntary 
self-sacrifice  of  the  Holy  One  redemption  could  be 
wrought  out  for  the  guilty ,1  how  could  He,  whose  func- 
tion it  was  to  break  the  power  of  sin  in  humanity  and 
impart  a  new  life  of  divine  sonship,  fail  to  see  that  He 
must  endure  the  utmost  expression  of  sin's  curse,  and 
taste  not  only  of  life's  sorrow  but  of  death's  bitterness  ? 

^  Isa.  liii. 


ro4       Growth  of  Christ's  Self-Conscio2isness    [Lect. 

Nor  is  it  easy  to  understand  how  Jesus  could  possibly 
conceive,  under  any  circumstances  of  popular  welcome, 
of  the  success  of  His  Messianic  mission  in  His  own  life- 
time. The  spiritual  blessing  which  He  brought  was  not 
one  that  could  be  even  rightly  comprehended,  far  less 
appropriated,  so  long  as  He  stood  before  men  under  the 
limiting  conditions  of  earthly  life.  This  is  obvious,  even 
in  the  case  of  His  most  loyal  disciples.  Did  He  picture 
to  Himself  a  time  when  the  whole  Jewish  people, 
including  the  representative  hierarchy,  would  be  as  loyal 
to  Him  as  they?  That  would  not  have  sufficed  for  Him 
or  for  them.  And  what  of  future  generations?  Had 
He  no  thought  of  the  deepest  trials  of  life  ?  What 
message  of  deliverance  would  He  have  left  to  a  dying 
and  self-condemned   humanity  ?  ^ 

I  have  not  at  all  argued  this  question  from  the 
standpoint  of  Christ's  Divinity  and  of  what  as  Divine  He 
must  have  known.  We  cannot  say  beforehand  how 
much  or  how  little  of  His  essential  prerogative  of  perfect 
power  and  knowledge  the  Son  of  God  surrendered  in 
subm.itting  to  the  conditions  of  a  true  human  life.  The 
a  priori  method  is  utterly  illegitimate,  and  issues  in  a 
perverted  exegesis.  It  led  the  Fathers  almost  universally 
to  explain  away  Jesus'  declaration  that  He  knew  not  the 
day  of  the  Final  Judgment,-  by  affirming  that  He  used 
the  words,  not  in  His  own  person,  but  as  the  representa- 


^  See  Neander's  discussion  on  Christ's  plan  as  unchanged,  Life  of  Christ, 
pp.  84-88. 

2  Mark  xiii.  32  ;  Matt.  xxiv.  36  (R.V.).  See  Gore,  Dissertations,  pp. 
117,  136,  160.  The  fact  of  a  Hniitation  in  Christ's  knowledge  remains  the 
same,  even  if  the  prophetic  discourse  on  the  Coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  be 
Iteld  (as  by  Gould,  Comm.  on  St.  Mark,  p.  241)  to  refer  to  the  fall  of  the 
Jewish  Slate,  and  not  at  all  to  the  end  of  the  world. 


III.]        Growth  of  Chrisfs  Self -Consciousness       105 

tive  of  His  mystical  Body,  the  Church.  The  appeal 
must  be  purely  to  the  facts;  nor  is  it  difficult  to  see 
what  their  general  verdict  is.  He  had  no  absolute  and 
intuitive  knowledge  of  distant  or  merely  external  events. 
There  are  indeed  one  or  two  instances  which  seem  to 
imply  it ;  as  when  He  told  Peter  how  he  would  find 
the  piece  of  money  in  the  fish's  mouth,  and  the  disciples 
how  they  would  find  the  colt  tied  in  the  village,  and  the 
man  bearing  a  pitcher  of  water  who  would  take  them  to 
the  upper  chamber.^  These  belong  to  a  different  cate- 
gory from  His  prophecy  of  Judas'  betrayal  or  Peter's 
denial,  because  they  are  isolated  facts  not  capable  of 
discovery  through  their  relation  to  human  character. 
But  whatever  difficulty  there  may  be  in  explain- 
ing them, — and  they  are  precisely  analogous  to  the 
predictions  of  special  occurrences  attributed  to  the 
prophets, — they  are  not  typical  but  exceptional.  The 
distinct  impression  which  the  life  of  Jesus  as  a  whole 
leaves  upon  us  is  that  He  gained  His  knowledge  of 
outward  events  through  ordinary  channels  of  information. 
He  frequently  expresses  unfeigned  surprise,  asks  the 
father  of  the  demoniac  child,  "  How  long  is  it  since  this 
hath  come  unto  him  ? "  and  inquires  where  Lazarus  is 
laid.2  He  gives  no  indication  of  supernatural  acquaint- 
ance with  the  facts  of  physical  science  or  of  the  history 
of  the  world,  Jewish  or  Gentile.  There  is  no  sign  of 
omniscience,  and  no  claim  to  it.  Godet  says  of  Him, 
"  As  a  philosopher  He  would  have  surpassed  Socrates ; 
as  an  orator,  have  eclipsed  Demosthenes."  ^     This  seems 

1  Matt.  xvii.  27  ;  Mark  xi.  2-6. 

2  Mark  ix.  21  ;  John  xi.  34. 

^  Defence  of  the  Christian  Faith,  p.  21S. 


ro6      Method  of  Christ's  Self -Manifcstatio7i     [Lect. 

to  me  an  excellent  example  of  the  way  7wt  to  describe 
Christ.  To  compare  Him  with  the  great  intellectual 
leaders  of  mankind,  and  then  to  assert  that  He  would 
have  excelled  each  in  his  own  department,  is  to  seek,  as 
the  Jews  did,  to  honour  Him  with  an  earthly  crown. 
It  is  not  warranted  by  the  records,  and  it  obscures  rather 
than  reveals  His  true  glory.  He  enters  into  no  such 
rivalry,  but  remains  enthroned  apart,  the  Lord  of  the 
spiritual  world.^  One  thing  at  least  is  clear,  whatever 
limitations  were  involved  in  His  secular  knowledcre,  He 
shows  unerring  insight  into  the  characters  of  men,  the 
operation  of  moral  forces,  the  conditions  of  spiritual 
renewal,  into  all,  in  short,  that  entered  into  His  redemp- 
tive mission.  Now  the  elimination  of  His  death  from 
Jesus'  early  view  of  His  Messiahship  would  carry  with  it 
the  elimination  of  a  great  deal  more,  and  completely 
transform  the  nature  of  that  mission  itself.  It  would 
imply  an  imperfect  conception  of  sin  and  of  His  own 
permanent  indispensableness  as  the  Remover  of  it,  which 
is  contradicted  by  His  initial  consciousness  of  supreme 
Sonship.  We  are  a  thousandfold  more  likely  to  err  in 
ascribing  to  Him  in  His  own  sphere  too  Httle  knowledge 
than  too  much.'^ 

II.  It  was,  then,  with  the  absolute  conviction  of  the 
unique  relation  in  which  He  stood  to  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  the  Father's  love  and  the  chosen  organ  of  His 
people's  deliverance,  that  Jesus  entered  on  His  ministry. 
But  it  would  have  been  of  no  avail  for  Him  to  say,  "  I 
am  the  Son  of  God,"  or  "  I  am  the  Messiah,"  so  long  as 
these   names   did    not  carry   for   His    hearers    their    true 

1  See  Note  12,  p.  39S,  "  Pascal  on  the  true  Glory  of  Christ's  life." 

2  See  Note  13,  p.  398,  "  The  Limitations  of  our  Lord's  knowledge." 


III.]        Method  of  Christ's  Self-Manifestation       107 

spiritual  content.  They  would  then  have  been  mere 
titles  of  courtesy  or  formal  reverence,  the  use  of  vv^hich 
is  one  of  the  most  perilous  things  in  religion.  Jesus 
strenuously  set  Himself,  as  in  the  case  of  the  young 
ruler,  to  challenge  all  these,  and  to  rescue  great  moral 
or  religious  terms  from  such  debasement.  He  had  first 
to  supply  men  with  the  data  which  alone  could  give  the 
names  their  right  place  and  significance  as  the  expression 
and  summation  of  an  inward  experience. 

This  preparatory  work  of  deepening  and  purifying 
the  primary  religious  feelings  and  ideas  of  men,  indis- 
pensable as  it  is  for  all  prophets  of  God,  was  specially 
necessary  for  Jesus  on  account  of  His  affiliation  to  the 
past.  He  was  not  only  carrying  on,  but  completing,  all 
former  revelations.  They  constituted  the  basis  and  pre- 
supposition of  His  mission.  He  was  compelled  to  relate 
Himself  to  the  great  Messianic  Hope,  which  yet  He  had 
to  transform.  He  could  not  disregard  that  Hope  with 
its  entangling  misconceptions ;  He  had  both  to  conserve 
and  to  transmute  it.  For  Him  the  essence  of  Messiahship 
was  Sonship ;  it  was  through  the  consciousness  of  Son- 
ship  that  He  felt  Himself  called  to  the  office ;  and  so 
the  Messianic  blessing  which  He  was  to  realise  and 
impart  to  men  was  just  this  filial  spirit.  He  had  to 
refrain  from  claiming  the  title  until  He  had  at  least  in 
part  made  His  purpose  clear,  and  led  them  to  feel  the 
supreme  value  of  this  spiritual  life  which  He  possessed 
and  mediated.  He  had  to  draw  away  their  thoughts 
from  false  ideals  of  national  triumph,  not  by  direct 
repudiation  of  these,  so  much  as  by  arousing  suscepti- 
bilities and  longings  which  no  national  triumph  could 
satisfy.      His  initial  work  was   the  transformation  of  the 


io8       MctJiod  of  Christ's  Self-Manifestation    [Lect. 

individual  character  through  fellowship  with  Himself, 
and  through  the  revelation  of  the  divine  which  that 
fellowship  brought.  Very  slowly,  indeed,  were  the  ex- 
ternal and  patriotic  hopes  surrendered ;  they  lived  on 
alongside  of  the  new  inspirations  which  He  gave  to  men  ; 
but  the  latter  were  the  growing  factors  of  their  life,  and 
as  His  influence  deepened,  one  by  one  the  earthly 
dreams  lost  their  power.  These  no  longer  formed  the 
determining  element  in  their  principles  and  impulses, 
which  were  moulded  by  His  spirit  and  example.  Thus 
were  laid,  and  thus  alone  could  be  laid,  the  foundations 
which  made  inevitable  the  ultimate  recognition  of  the 
true  nature  of  His  Messiahship. 

There  were  three  means  {A)  which  Jesus  adopted  for 
the  creation  of  this  experience  :  Teaching,  Miracles,  and 
the  Influence  of  His  Personal  Presence.  They  did  not 
operate  singly,  they  blended  together  and  interpreted  one 
another,  as  the  threefold  manifestation  of  a  life-giving 
Personality.  Each  was  indispensable  as  representing  one 
phase  of  it,  and  {E)  the  key  to  the  whole  is  to  be  found 
in  His  relation  to  the  twelve  disciples,  where  alone  all 
three  factors  existed  in  their  fullest  form  and  told  with 
complete  effect. 

A.  \.  His  Teaching.  We  have  seen  in  the  last  lecture 
the  substance  of  Christ's  declarations  regarding  Himself 
and  the  significance  of  His  imperious  claims  as  viewed 
by  us  in  retrospect,  or  by  the  apostles  when  they  stood 
at  the  close  of  the  revelation.  What  we  have  now  to 
deal  with  is,  not  the  complete  form,  but  the  order  of  His 
teaching,  the  method  by  which  He  led  up  to  the  full 
disclosure  of  His  personality,  and  prepared  certain 
chosen    spirits    for    receiving    its    impress.      His    earlier 


III.]        Method  of  Chrisi s  Self-Manifestation       109 

ministry,  whose  characteristics  we  must  gather,  not  from 
John,  but  from  the  Synoptics,  contains  no  direct  exposi- 
tion of  His  place  and  function  comparable  to  the  vivid- 
ness and  certainty  of  His  own  self-consciousness,  or  to 
the  utterances  of  the  final  months.  The  conception 
which  men  would  have  of  His  mission  as  Mediator 
wholly  depended  on  their  prior  conceptions  of  God  and 
man  ;  and  it  was  to  the  rectifying  and  enriching  of  these 
that  He  first  addressed  Himself. 

By  proclaiming  the  Kingdom  of  God    as    the   great 
end  which  He  came  to  realise.  He  put  Himself  in  touch 
with  the  long-descended  traditions  and  hopes  of  the  Jews  ; 
but  He  divested  the  Kingdom  of  its  limited  and  external 
suggestions    by   affirming    as    its    determining    idea    the 
Fatherhood  of  God.      Now,  if  the  relation  in  which  God 
stood  to  men  was  that  of  a  Father  to  His  children,  then 
its  whole  character  was  not  political   but  ethical;   it  was 
a  fellowship  of  heart  with  heart.      No  service  which  man 
as  God's  child  could  render  Him  had  any  meaning  unless 
it  sprang  from  the  impulse  of  a  personal   devotion.      At 
one   stroke   ceremonial   worship   and    interested    philan- 
thropy   were    branded    as    a    worthless     mockery ;    the 
rejection   of  which    but    revealed    the    more    clearly   the 
greatness  of  the  single  soul  whose  least  act  of  genuine 
homage  brought  joy  to  the  heart  of  God.      Each  was  of 
value  to  Him,  not  merely  as  a  member  of  a  society,  but 
in    and    for   himself,  just   because   he   had    in    him    the 
capacity  of  manifesting  the  filial  spirit.      But  this  spirit 
could  only  be  awaked  in  a  man  by  his  perception  of  the 
Father's    love   as   already  existing,   brooding   over    him, 
encompassing   him.      It   was    under   the   recognition    of 
that  love  as  directed  to  himself  personally  and  going  all 


iio      Method  of  Christ's  Self- Manifestation    [Lcct. 

lengths  of  sacrifice  to  regain  him,  that  the  new  Hfe  was 
born  within  him,  so  that  he  returned  through  the  gate 
of  self-abasement  to  self-surrender  and  the  obedience 
of  sonship.  The  new  fellowship  into  which  God  had 
brought  him  altered  his  entire  relations  to  those  around 
him.  He  interpreted  others  by  himself,  saw  them  under 
the  new  light  which  had  transfigured  his  own  experience. 
They,  too,  were  children,  each  of  them  as  truly  as  he 
the  object  of  the  Father's  care ;  and  however  perverted 
or  wilful,  had  in  them  the  germ  of  sonship  which  it  was 
his  mission  up  to  the  measure  of  his  opportunity  to 
foster  and  develop.  He  had  to  exercise  toward  them 
the  same  free  forgiveness  which  God  had  shown  to  him ; 
to  love  them,  not  because  they  were  good,  but  that  he 
might  make  them  good,  and  because  they  were  capable 
of  becoming  so.  Thus  the  Kingdom  which  Jesus 
preached  was  in  its  essence  implicitly  universal,  just 
because  it  was  based  on  the  value  before  God  of  the 
individual  soul  as  such,  and  had  inwardness  and  freedom 
for  its  characteristic  marks. 

And  since  the  supreme  purpose  of  Christ  was  not  to 
give  men  right  ideas  about  the  Kingdom,  but  to  bring 
them  within  it.  He  had  to  cast  His  teaching  into  a  form 
which  would  make  it  the  illumination  of  their  experience. 
"  False  opinions,"  as  John  Stuart  INIill  reminds  us,  "  may 
be  exchanged  for  true  ones,  without  in  the  least  altering 
the  habit  of  mind  of  which  false  opinions  are  the  result."^ 
It  was  this  "  habit  of  mind,"  this  disposition  and  bias  of 
the  soul,  which  Christ  laboured  to  transform.  His 
pictorial  and  parabolic  sayings,  by  touching  the  emotions 
and    the    imagination,    quickened    the    forces    which,   far 

^  AiUobiography ^  p.  239. 


III.]        MetJiod  of  Christ's  Self- Manifestation       iir 

more  than  the  intellect,  mould  the  personal  character. 
No  direct  statement  could  set  forth  the  Fatherliness  of 
God  or  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man  with  the  incisive 
power  of  the  "  Prodigal  Son  "  or  the  "  Good  Samaritan." 
It  is  not  merely  that  these  pictures  are  more  memorable, 
but  they  fasten  upon  the  heart  with  the  power  of  living 
example,  and  arouse  it  to  new  impulses.  Christ's  hearers, 
in  the  very  endeavour  to  make  out  the  analogy  between 
the  human  and  the  divine  which  His  parables  implied, 
were  thrown  back  upon  themselves  and  led  to  feel  the 
higher  meanings  of  their  commonest  life.  The  divine 
was  brought  near,  and  the  human  was  made  great. 
Even  when  He  enjoined  specific  duties  of  patience  or 
forgiveness,  it  was  not  according  to  the  definite  method 
of  the  moralist,  but  in  the  inspiring  manner  of  the 
prophet,  who  is  not  afraid  of  enigmatical  utterance,  if 
only  he  can  stimulate  the  thought  or  the  conscience. 
Nay,  it  would  seem  at  times  as  if  He  deliberately  used 
expressions  which  had  a  certain  ambiguity,  and  which 
only  unfolded  their  meaning  to  the  resolute  and  earnest 
soul.  While  He  came  to  reveal  new  truths  which 
unaided  human  wisdom  could  not  reach,  no  one  ever 
acted  more  in  the  spirit  of  the  maxim,  that  that  only  is 
true  for  men  which  they  discover  for  themselves.  For 
the  truth,  however  it  may  in  the  abstract  be  the  same 
for  all,  is  in  the  concrete  different  for  each,  comes  to  him 
by  a  different  process,  and  verifies  itself  in  different  forms 
of  practical  experience.  Christ's  object  was  not  to 
formulate  a  system  of  doctrine,  but  to  thrill  souls  by  a 
divine  impulse.  His  supreme  interest  was  in  individuals. 
He  adapted  Himself  to  their  special  character,  speaking 
to    each   the   word   that   he    most    needed   or  was  most 


1 1 2      Method  of  Christ' s  Self- Manifestation     [Lect. 

likely  to  welcome.  A  great  part  of  the  record  is  taken 
up  with  personal  interviews,  and  many  of  His  deepest 
sayings  come  to  us  coloured  by  the  occasion.  Hence 
the  infinite  variety  and  even  at  times  apparent  self- 
contradiction  of  His  teaching.  For  the  purpose  He  had 
in  view  the  half  of  the  truth  was  often  more  than  the 
whole ;  it  was  the  surest  way  in  the  end  of  leading  the 
man  into  possession  of  the  fuller  revelation.  So  He 
wrought  constantly  by  aphorism  and  suggestion,  because 
they  who  could  not  be  aroused  to  examine  and  appro- 
priate for  themselves  would  never  enter  the  Kingdom  at 
all.  Underlying  all  that  He  said  was  the  demand  that 
men  should  meet  Him  half-way,  should  bring  the  contri- 
bution of  living  minds  and  hearts  to  the  appreciation  of 
His  message.  He  did  not  argue,  He  declared  ;  assured 
that  all  who  were  "  His  own "  would  come  to  Him. 
"  Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  My  voice."  ^ 

By  thus  throwing  upon  men  the  responsibility  of 
intelligent  co-operation  with  Him  in  the  attainment  of 
truth.  He  was  not  abnegating  His  authority  over  them  : 
He  was  adopting  the  one  certain  means  of  establishing 
it.  This  is  in  some  degree  hidden  from  us,  because  we 
so  readily  imagine  the  final  form  of  authority  to  be  that 
of  a  despot  or  dictator,  who  wields  an  unchallenged 
control  over  servants  whose  only  function  is  to  carry 
out  his  behests,  whether  they  perceive  their  reasonable- 
ness or  not.  They  arc  but  the  mechanical  instruments 
of  his  will ;  his  word  is  as  absolute  at  the  beginning  of 
the  relationship  as  at  the  close.  But  such  an  authority 
has  hardly  any  place  in  the  moral  sphere.  The  un- 
questioned obedience  which  a  mother  exacts  even   from 

^  John  xviii.  37. 


III.]        Method  of  Christ' s  Self -Manifestation       ii 


J 


a  young  child  is  not  simply  obedience  to  a  bare  com- 
mand, which  the  child  is  conscious  can  be  enforced.  He 
may  be'  quite  unable  to  understand  the  necessity  or 
rightness  of  the  command,  but  he  understands  something 
of  the  person  from  whom  it  comes.  He  has  learned  to 
associate  her  with  love  and  a  greater  wisdom  than  his 
own,  and  the  injunction  she  gives  carries  with  it  the 
sanction  of  her  gracious  character.  But  this  initial 
obedience,  which  is  rendered  rather  to  the  character 
than  to  the  special  command,  develops  in  course  of 
time  the  capacity  of  the  child  for  recognising  the 
inherent  fitness  of  the  command  itself:  so  that  the 
relation  between  mother  and  child  becomes  less  and 
less  that  of  ruler  to  subject,  and  more  and  more  that  of 
the  larger  to  the  lesser  soul,  whom  it  raises  gradually 
into  closer  fellowship.^ 

The  authority  which  Christ  exercised  as  a  teacher 
was  of  this  moral  type.  How  was  it  at  first  acquired  ? 
Not  by  overbearing  men's  judgment,  but  by  appealing 
to  it,  by  the  utterance  of  truths  concerning  God  and 
themselves,  to  which,  even  when  they  could  not  fully 
comprehend  them,  their  hearts  bore  a  surprised  witness ; 
and  whose  power  over  them  grew,  the  longer  they 
pondered  and  lived  with  them.  It  was  extended  and 
deepened  by  every  fresh  disclosure  on  His  part,  and 
every  verification  on  theirs.  They  became  conscious 
that  this  whole  world  of  spiritual  strength  and  joy, 
which  was  but  slowly  unfolding  itself  to  them,  lay 
before  Him  like  an  open  book  ;  nay,  that  He  not  only 
saw  it  but  possessed  it,  that  He  held  the  keys  of  that 
Kingdom   into  which  they  fain  would  enter.      This   con- 

^  See  Gore  on  the  two  types  of  authority,  Bampioii  Lectures^  p,  177. 
8 


114     Method  of  Christ's  Self -Manifestation     [Lect. 

viction,  however,  was  created  in  them  partly  by  causes  yet 
to  be  explained,  and  came  not  from  His  teaching  merely, 
but  from  the  interpretation  which  the  teaching  gave  to, 
and  received  from,  the  life.  Their  increasing  assimilation 
of  the  truth  He  revealed  did  not  tend  to  the  diminution 
but  to  the  increase  of  His  authority,  as  the  Way  to  the 
Father,  as  the  sole  possessor  of  the  divine  secret  of  peace. 

2.  His  Miracles.  In  discussing  the  second  factor  in 
Christ's  self-manifestation,  we  pass  into  a  different  atmo- 
sphere. Critics  of  Christianity  are  fond  of  dwelling  on 
the  contrast  between  the  miracles  and  the  teaching, 
between  marvellous  works  which  are  temporary  and 
locals  the  evidence  for  which  grows  feebler  with  lapse 
of  time,  and  truths  which  once  spoken  are  eternal  and 
inci'easingly  self -verifying  in  human  experience.  This 
familiar  antithesis,  which  has  attained  the  dignity  of  a 
supposed  commonplace,  is  not  at  all,  as  I  hope  to  show, 
a  balanced  and  accurate  statement  of  the  relative 
character  of  the  two  as  they  exist  in  the  life  of  Christ. 
But  it  serves  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  the  miracles 
had  a  direct  significance  for  those  before  whose  eyes 
they  were  wrought,  which  they  cannot  have  for  others ; 
and  that  even  their  credibility  in  later  times  is  dependent 
on  their  correlation  to  moral  forces  in  teaching  or 
personal  character.  Whatever  view  men  take  nowa- 
days of  the  miracles  attributed  to  Christ,  three  things 
are  practically  certain :  that  the  people  among  whom  He 
lived  believed  that  He  wrought  them ;  that  this  belief  was 
a  chief  element  in  attracting  men  to  Him  as  their  Master, 
and  in  confirming  their  faith  in  His  divine  mission  ;  and 
that  Jesus  Himself  meant  and  taught  them  so  to  believe. 

The    Second    Gospel,  which   embodies    the     earliest 


III.]        Method  of  Chrisfs  Self -Manifestation       1 1 5 

collection  of  the  evangelic  facts/  and  in  all  probability 
is  substantially  identical  with  the  "  Teaching  of  Peter," 
mentioned  by  Papias,  is  largely  a  narrative  of  the 
wonderful  deeds  of  Jesus ;  and  thus,  as  regards  mere 
testimony,  we  have  more  ancient  evidence  for  His 
miracles  than  for  many  of  His  sayings.  The  incisive 
realism  of  Mark's  portraiture  is  the  best  proof  that  he 
is  recording  the  reminiscences  of  an  eye-witness.  Take, 
for  example,  the  scene  in  the  Synagogue  of  Capernaum 
at  the  opening  of  the  Galilean  ministry,  the  effect 
produced  by  the  healing  of  the  demoniac,  the  astonished 
cry  of  the  people,  "  What  is  this  ?  A  new  teaching ! 
With  authority  He  commandeth  even  the  unclean  spirits, 
and  they  obey  Him."^  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that 
we  have  here  a  transcript  of  the  actual  impression. 
The  endeavour,  formerly  so  common,  to  save  the  sayings 
at  the  expense  of  the  miracles,  inevitably  results  in  the 
arbitrary  rejection  of  some  of  the  most  characteristic  of 
the  former.  Any  plausibility  which  the  mythical  theory 
might  have  as  an  explanation  of  the  cures  ascribed 
to  Jesus,  is  wholly  destroyed  by  its  inability  to  account 
for  the  pregnant  and  penetrating  words  which  are  in- 
dissolubly  bound  up  with  them,  and  which,  if  internal 
evidence  has  any  meaning,  bear  the  indubitable  stamp 
of  the  Master.^      His  recorded   unwillingness  on   certain 

^  Mr.  F.  P.  Badham  in  his  recent  volume,  S.  Mark's  Indebtedness  to  S. 
Mattkezv,  endeavours  to  rehabilitate  Augustine's  verdict,  so  long  prevalent, 
on  Mark  as  "pedisequus  et  breviator  Matthgei";  but  his  argument,  however 
ingenious  in  details,  is  not  likely  to  shake  the  view  now  generally  accepted  of 
Mark's  originality. 

2  Mark  i.  27. 

^  See  Godet,  Defence,  pp.  1 14, 115.  "They  (the  sayings)  stand  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  miracle  as  the  inscription  stamped  upon  the  coin  does  to  the 
coin  itself." 


1 1 6      Method  of  Christ's  Self-Ma^iifestation  '  [Lect. 

occasions  to  work  miracles,  His  strong  disapproval  of 
those  who  would  make  them  the  sole  ground  of  their 
belief,  His  contempt  for  the  generation  that  was  ever 
seeking  a  sign,  are  not  arguments  against  the  reality  of 
His  claim  to  perform  them,  but  in  favour  of  it,  as  being 
a  protest  against  the  misunderstanding  of  their  character 
and  aim,  and  a  protest  whose  presupposition  is  that  He 
has  already  wrought  them.  When  we  take  into  account 
the  immense  place  they  fill  in  the  Gospels,  the  illuminat- 
ive details  with  which  they  are  related,  the  particularisa- 
tion  of  persons  and  localities,  and  the  essential  consistency 
of  the  Synoptic  story  amid  its  threefold  diversity,  it  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  with  Professor  Seeley  that  "  the 
fact  that  Christ  appeared  as  a  worker  of  miracles  is  the 
best  attested  fact  in  His  whole  biography."^ 

The  scornful  incredulity  with  which  they  are  regarded 
arises  from  the  conviction  that  scarcely  any  conceivable 
amount  of  testimony  would  suffice  to  establish  them. 
The  Agnostic  who  knows  his  business  is  too  wise  to 
entangle  himself  in  an  argument  as  to  their  abstract 
possibility.  He  attains  his  end  quite  as  effectively  by 
denying  their  credibility.  "  Certainly,"  he  says,  "  they 
may  have  happened ;  but  they  can  never  be  adequately 
proved.  The  belief  in  the  uniform  operation  of  nature 
is  based  on  such  an  overwhelming  induction  from  human 
experience,  that  the  improbability  of  a  departure  from 
that  uniformity  at  a  single  point  overbears  any  prob- 
ability as  to  its  occurrence  drawn  from  the  testimony 
of  a  necessarily  limited  circle.  Even  if  that  testimony 
were  corroborated  by  many  witnesses  of  acknowledged 
honesty    and    intelligence,    it   would    not    be    possible    to 

^  Ecce  Homo,  Preface,  p.  9. 


III.]        Method  of  Chrisfs  Self-Manifestation       117 

eliminate  the  suspicion  of  inaccuracy  or  self-deception 
on  their  part,  in  face  of  the  inherent  unlikelihood  of 
the  event  itself."  General  propositions  of  this  kind  are 
nothing  better  than  a  snare.  Whatever  force  they 
possess,  they  derive  from  treating  miracles  in  vacuo,  as 
a  mere  break  in  the  continuity  of  nature,  and  taking  no 
account  of  their  quality,  the  purpose  that  underlies  them, 
or  their  relation  to  surrounding  circumstances.  To  class 
Professor  Huxley's  imaginary  centaur  trotting  down 
Piccadilly,^  with  Christ's  healing  of  the  sick  or  His  raising 
of  Lazarus,  as  if  the  evidence  in  the  two  cases  were  in 
the  least  degree  comparable ;  to  say,  as  Professor  Huxley 
does,  "  all  miracles  are  centaurs  or  they  would  not  be 
miracles,"  is  to  be  blind  to  the  first  conditions  of  the 
problem.  Abstract  discussions  of  their  credibility  or 
incredibility  are  unspeakably  futile,  and  only  tend  to 
confuse  things  that  differ.  The  question,  if  truth  be  our 
object,  is  essentially  a  particular  one.  Is  this  or  that 
miracle,  or  series  of  miracles,  credible  in  view  of  the 
facts  as  a  whole? 

It  so  happens  that  we  are  able  to  show,  in  one 
outstanding  instance,  the  precariousness  of  the  a  priori 
objection.  The  statement  that  "  all  men  have  sinned  " 
or  are  conscious  of  moral  failure,  is  as  universally  true  in 
the  moral  sphere  as  the  statement  that  "  all  men  are 
mortal  "  is  in  the  physical.  Were  we  told,  apparently 
on  good  authority,  that  some  one  living  hundreds  of 
years  ago  had  achieved  spiritual  perfection,  that  he  had 
attained  at  each  stage  of  life  all  the  goodness  possible 
for  him,  our  first  instinct  would  be  to  say  that  the  prior 
improbability,  founded   on  the  experience  of  sin   in  the 

^  Huxley,  Htime,  p.  134. 


1 1 8      Method  of  Christ's  Self- Manifestation     [Lcct. 

race,  outweighed  any  likelihood  that  might  belong  to 
such  an  assertion.  Therefore  the  testimony  of  the 
apostles  of  Jesus,  based  upon  at  least  a  year's  ^  close 
companionship  with  Him,  that  He  had  reached  this 
spiritual  completeness,  would,  if  it  had  stood  alone,  have 
been  discredited.  But  it  does  not  stand  alone  ;  as  has 
been  seen  in  the  first  lecture,  we  have  the  means  of 
testing  it  in  the  accounts  of  His  life  as  lived  among  men. 
We  have  the  data  in  the  words  which  He  spoke,  and  the 
attitude  which  He  assumed  towards  others,  on  which  we 
can  form  our  own  opinion  of  what  Christ  was.  We  see 
in  Him  a  soul  with  an  extreme  sensitiveness  of  spiritual 
perception,  and  yet  conscious  of  an  unbroken  loyalty  to 
the  Father's  will,  which  He  so  constantly  and  fully 
discerned.  Now,  the  uniform  experience  of  mankind 
proclaims  the  incompatibility  of  these  two  characteristics. 
Yet  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  they  were  united 
in  Him.  Thus  the  declaration  of  the  apostles  concern- 
ing the  holiness  of  Jesus,  which  the  so-called  general  law 
of  evidence  would  have  repudiated,  is  ratified  by  the 
judgment  which  we  are  able  to  form  on  other  grounds. 
The  peculiarity  in  this  case  is  that  the  testimony  is  such 
that  it  not  merely  asserts  the  miracle,  but  puts  us  in  the 
position  of  estimating  its  truth  for  ourselves,  by  bringing 
us  in  a  real  sense  as  directly  face  to  face  as  the  first 
witnesses  were  with  the  manifestations,  in  His  teaching 

^  I  am  speaking  here  only  of  the  contimioiis  fellowship  which  the  Twelve, 
as  a  whole,  had  with  Jesus.  My  own  view  is  that  it  extended  to  eighteen 
months  or  two  years  ;  but  the  point  can  never  be  definitely  settled.  Of  course, 
several  of  the  apostles,  and  these  the  chief,  like  John  and  Peter,  knew  Jesus, 
and  had  occasional  xt\.Q.\\ori'&  with  Him  from  His  first  appearance  beside  Jordan. 
I  restrict  myself  here  to  a  statement  which  all  will  admit,  whatever  views  they 
may  entertain  concerning  the  length  of  tlie  ministry  (see  Note  14,  p.  401,  on 
"  The  Duration  of  Christ's  Intercourse  with  the  Twelve  "). 


III.]        Method  of  Chrisfs  Self- Manifestation      119 

and  bearing,  of  the  unique  Personality.  We  know  as 
truly  as  they  what  substantially  the  manifestations  were, 
and  are  as  conscious  that  these  could  not  have  proceeded 
from  a  moral  nature  of  the  normal  type.  What,  therefore, 
we  are  driven  to  accept  in  the  case  of  Jesus  is  not  simply 
certain  great  ti'ttths  uttered  by  Him  concerning  God  and 
human  duty,  as  contrasted  with  the  vanishing  marvels 
of  the  hour,  but  the  fact  of  a  personal  character  to 
which  there  is  no  antecedent  or  subsequent  parallel,  and 
which  was  as  temporary  in  its  earthly  existence  as  the 
miracles  whose  temporariness  is  supposed  to  disparage 
them. 

We  have,  indeed,  no  such  means  of  verifying  Christ's 
miraculous  works  as  we  possess  of  verifying  the  miracle 
of    His   holiness.^       But,    in    the    first    place,    a    single 


^  In  arguing  for  miracles  as  the  indispensable  proof  of  a  divine  revelation, 
Dr.  Mozley  says  :  "  Would  not  a  perfectly  sinless  character  be  proof  of  a  reve- 
lation ?  Undoubtedly  that  would  be  as  great  a  miracle  as  any  that  could  be 
conceived  ;  but  where  is  the  proof  of  perfect  sinlessness  ?  No  outward  life  and 
conduct,  however  just,  benevolent,  and  irreproachable,  could  prove  this; 
because  goodness  depends  upon  the  inward  motive,  and  the  perfection  of  the 
inward  motive  is  not  proved  by  the  outward  act.  Exactly  the  same  act  may 
be  perfect  or  imperfect,  according  to  the  spirit  of  the  doer.  The  same  language 
of  indignation  against  the  wicked  which  issues  from  our  Lord's  mouth  might 
be  uttered  by  an  imperfect  good  man,  who  mixed  human  frailty  with  the 
emotion.  We  accept  our  Lord's  perfect  goodness,  then,  upon  the  same  evi- 
dence upon  which  we  admit  the  rest  of  His  supernatural  character  ;  but  not  as 
proved  by  the  outward  goodness  of  His  life,  by  His  character,  sublime  as  that 
was,  as  it  presented  itself  to  the  eye"  {Miracles,  pp.  ii,  12).  According  to 
this  view,  the  proof  of  our  Lord's  perfect  goodness  lies  not  in  His  outward  life 
or  conduct,  but  in  His  miraculous  works  and  in  His  resurrection.  Now  this 
is  doubly  erroneous.  I.  It  is  the  merest  commonplace  that  a  single  act,  taken 
by  itself,  however  apparently  good  or  self-sacrificing,  does  not  necessarily 
demonstrate  the  goodness  of  a  man's  heart.  But  there  is  no  parallel  between  an 
isolated  action  and  Christ's  intercourse  with  the  Twelve,  which,  alike  from  its 
duration  and  its  essential  characteristics,  involved  a  self-revelation  on  His  part 
that  touched  the  inmost  quality  of  His  moral  being  (Lect.  I.).  Dr.  Mozley 
would  have  been  among  the  first  to   repudiate  as   irrational   the   idea   that 


1 20      Method  of  Christ' s  Self- Manifestation    [Lect. 

demonstrated  exception  to  a  uniform  order  of  experience 
should  lead  us  to  lower  our  tone  in  talking  of  a  pi'iori 
incredibility.  And,  in  the  second  place,  the  miracles  of 
Christ's  ministry  are  not  isolated  marvels,  hanging  in  air, 
but  hold  an  inseparable  relation  to  One  who  has  already 
proved  Himself  an  exception  to  the  continuity  of  nature. 
They  were  not  only  wrought  by  Him^  but  wrought  in 
fulfilment  of  the  same  purpose  which  explains  the  exist- 
ence in  our  world  of  His  personality.  That  purpose 
was,  as  His  claims  prove,  not  simply  to  reveal  the 
Father,  but  to  mediate  His  grace,  to  be  the  quickening 
Spirit  of  a  new  kingdom  of  souls.  But  the  disorganisa- 
tion which  it  was  His  mission  to  cure  extended  to  the 
physical  sphere  as  well  as  to  the  spiritual.  The  sin  which 
severed  man  from  God's  fellowship  worked  itself  out  in 
disease  and  death.  Was  the  deliverance  which  He 
brought  to  human  hearts,  in  renewing  their  trust  in  the 
Father,  powerless  to  arrest  and  reverse  the  outzvard 
consequences  of  moral  transgression  ?  Was  He  helpless 
before  those  physical  laws  which  demand  from  the  sinner 
the  uttermost  farthing  of  penalty  ? 

Christ's  miracles  are  His  answer  to  that  question. 
{ci)  God's  universe  is  one.  He  whose  will  Christ  came  to 
do  is  Lord  both  of  Nature  and  Spirit,  and  gave  Him 
power  for  the  redemption  of  both.  But  the  miracles 
proved  more  than  the  universal  dominance  of  the  redeem- 
ing power  ;  they  showed   that  nature  exists  for  the  sake 

the  impression  Jesus  left  upon  the  disciples  might  have  been  produced  by 
"an  imperfect  good  man,  who  mixed  human  frailty"  with  his  excellence. 
2.  While  it  is  true  that  the  jjhysical  miracles  form  a  part  of  the  same  whole 
of  revelation  with  the  moral  miracle,  and  have  an  evidential  value  of  their 
own,  yet  it  is  the  latter,  not  the  former,  which  is  the  basal  lact  (see  below, 
p.  157,  ")• 


iii-l        Method  of  Christ's  S e If- Ma^tife station      1 2 1 

of  spirit.^  It  has,  indeed,  Its  own  laws ;  but  their  uni- 
formity is  modified  for  the  higher  revelation  of  spirit. 
Thus  the  miracles  are  not  pure  displays  of  power  :  they 
are  penetrated  with  a  spiritual  symbolism.  This  is  so 
even  in  the  case  of  those  wTought  on  external  nature, 
like  the  Stilling  of  the  Storm,  or  the  Feeding  of  the 
Five  Thousand.  It  is  still  more  manifest  in  His  works 
of  healing,  which  form  much  the  larger  portion  of  the 
whole.  They  are  redemptive  acts.  The  bodily  cure  is 
but  the  analogue  in  the  physical  world  of  the  restoration 
effected  in  the  spiritual,  and  is  wrought  as  its  typical 
representation.  "  Whether  is  easier  to  say,  Thy  sins 
be  forgiven  thee  ;  or  to  say.  Arise  and  walk  ?  But  that  ye 
may  know  that  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins,  then  saith  He  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy.  Arise, 
take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  unto  thine  house."  ^  [p^  xhis 
subordination  of  the  physical  to  the  moral  is  further 
implied  in  the  demand  for  faith,  for  the  right  attitude  of 
receptivity  on  the  part  of  the  recipient  of  the  cure. 
Though  Jesus,  by  the  simple  exercise  of  authority,  con- 
trolled outward  nature  and  stayed  the  tempest,  yet  when 
the  natural  formed  part  of  the  same  organism  with  the 
spiritual,  as  in  humanity,  He  related  Himself  to  the 
former  through  the  latter  as  the  superior  and  determining 
factor.  As  no  bare  word  of  command  suffices  for  the 
soul's  regeneration  without  its  own  free  response,  so  it 
did  not  suffice  for  the  healing  of  those  bodily  evils  which 

^  As  to  Spirit  being  the  implicit  truth  of  Nature,  and  the  revelation  of  Spirit 
the  end  to  which  Nature  points  in  its  progressive  stages  of  evolution,  see 
Principal  Caird,  Iiitrodtiction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  108-110; 
Gore,  Bamptoii  Lectures,  pp.  29-35  J  Fairbairn,  Studies  in  the  Life  of  Christ, 
pp.  153-155  ;  Godet,  Defence  of  the  Christian  Faith,  pp.  121-126. 
2  Matt.  ix.  5,  6. 


122      Method  of  CJwist' s  Self-Manifestation     [Lect. 

had  their  root  in  the  soul's  apostasy  from  God.  {c)  The 
same  respective  relation  between  the  two  comes  out  in 
the  restraint  of  Christ  in  the  exercise  of  His  miraculous 
gift.  It  never  assumes  the  aspect  of  "  omnipotence  let 
loose,"  but  is  always  power  controlled  from  within  by 
love.  He  does  not  wield  it  in  His  own  interest,  either 
by  lessening  the  sufferings  which  fell  to  His  lot,  or 
by  visiting  His  detractors  with  vengeance.^  It  is  the 
effluence  of  a  personality  which  is  essentially  a  renovat- 
ing moral  force.  Therefore  the  miracles  are  not  a  proof 
externally  supplied  to  a  message  which  is  independent  of 
them  ;  they  are  a  part  of  the  message,  but  they  are  that 
part  of  it  which  carries  with  it  a  peculiar  evidential 
quality.  To  discard  the  evidential  element  in  them,  no 
matter  from  what  motive,  is  to  empty  them  of  their 
special  character,  and  to  reduce  them  to  Parables  in  act. 
Christ's  restoration  of  sight  to  Bartimasus  was,  from  one 
point  of  view,  an  illustration  in  conduct  of  the  same 
compassion  which  is  taught  in  the  story  of  the  Good 
Samaritan ;  but  it  was  a  great  deal  more.  It  was  at 
once  an  interpretation  of  His  spirit  of  pity,  and  a 
guarantee  of  its  supremacy  in  a  form  which  men  could 
easily  test. 

If  it  be  said  that  it  is  perilous  for  anyone  who  maintains 
an  idealistic  or  spiritual  view  of  the  universe  to  admit  that 
the  presence  of  the  divine  is  proved  rather  by  the  breaks 
in  the  natural  order  of  things  than  by  that  order  itself, 
the  reply,  after  what  has  been  said,  is  perfectly  plain. 
The  acceptance  of  miracles  as  evidential  does  not  imply 
that  nature  is  under  the  thrall  of  a  blind  necessity,  and 
that  the  only  indications  of  an  operative  spiritual  principle 

1  See  Note  15,  p.  404. 


III.]        Method  of  Chris  fs  Self 'Manifestation      12 


o 


are  given  by  exceptional  interruptions  of  the  natural 
course.  When  Dr.  Edward  Caird  says,  "  I  should  not 
expect  to  find  what  is  above  nature  anywhere,  if  there 
were  not  something  above  nature  everywhere,"  ^  he  is 
only  repeating  what  the  early  Christian  writers  made  the 
very  foundation  of  their  argument.^  In  no  sense  is  the 
world  before,  or  apart  from,  Christ,  a  world  without  God. 
In  its  different  stages  of  inorganic,  organic,  and  rational, 
it  presents  a  progressive  unveiling  of  the  divine  attributes, 
from  His  power  and  wisdom  up  to  at  least  partially  His 
moral  character.  That  men  fail  to  perceive  these  mani- 
festations, or  perceive  them  but  dimly,  is  due  to  their 
moral  disorder.  The  sin  which  impairs  man's  personal 
communion  with  God  has,  as  a  necessary  result,  blinded 
him  to  the  signs  of  God's  presence  in  the  universe.  Even 
the  natural  order  which  he  cannot  fail  to  see,  he  has  lost 
the  power  of  interpreting.  Nature's  uniformity  becomes 
a  blind  necessity,  not  the  expression  of  a  quickening  Spirit 
who  in  all  His  workings  remains  true  to  Himself.  It  is 
at  this  point  that  miracles  enter  with  a  revealing  power. 
If  nature  spoke  throughout  with  a  divine  significance  to 
man,  they  would  have  no  place.^  But  not  only  is  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  her  order  obscured  for  him,  but  in 
some  parts  of  it  that  order  itself  has  been  perverted. 
Deaf  ears  and  paralysed  limbs  are  no  part  of  it  according 
to  God's  intent,  and  the  very  fact  of  such  suffering  leads 
many  to  deny  His  existence  or  to  impeach  His  goodness. 
Therefore  Christ's  cures  were  real  signs  to  men  of  a  spiritual 
presence   and  authority.      For  they  were  both  arresting 

^  Evolution  of  Religion^  vol.  i.  p.  318. 

"  See  Note  16,  p,  405. 

^  See  Nole  17.  p.  406,  "  Miracle  as  belonging  to  a  disorganised  world." 


r  24      Method  of  Christ's  Self- Manifestation     [Lect. 

indications  of  the  operation  of  a  divine  will,  and  a  revela- 
tion of  its  beneficent  character.  Thus  they  were  7iot  meant 
to  suggest :  "  there  are  no  proofs  of  God  in  nature  ;  you 
cannot  find  Him  there  :  He  is  shown  only  in  His  super- 
session of  natural  methods  " ;  but  to  confirm  and  correct 
the  evidences  of  Him  which  nature  supplied;  to  open 
men's  eyes  to  the  daily  working  of  His  power  and  wisdom 
in  the  order  of  the  universe  ;  and  also  to  show  that  where 
the  action  of  His  natural  laws  was  injurious,  as  in  physical 
disease,  it  was  due  to  the  perversion  of  sin,  which  it  was 
God's  purpose  to  remove  in  order  to  restore  the  disturbed 
harmony  of  the  world. 

Or,  to  put  it  otherwise  :   Nature  is  a  progressive  reve- 
lation  of  God,  which   culminates  in  the  moral  being  of 
man.    But  it  is  at  the  highest  point,  for  which  the  previous 
stages  are  but  a  preparation,  that  the  revelation  has  been 
perverted.      For  God  to  fail  there  is  to  fail  altogether. 
Therefore  a  new  moral  centre  of  life  is  needed.      For  the 
purpose  of  restoring  the  moral  order,  God  manifests  Him- 
self in  a  unique  personal  life  as  a  renewing  power.     But 
this  moral    centre  is   necessarily  environed   by  the  opera- 
tions of  natural  law.      Will  these  remain  unaffected  ?  only 
if  in   all  respects    they  fulfil   their   original   design.      But 
that  is  not  the  case.      In   themselves  the  natural  laws  are 
unchanged  by  sin  ;  but  they  are  changed  in  their  effects. 
Their  working  is  poisoned  in  many  ways,  such  as  disease, 
by  the  influence  of  the  moral  disorganisation  of  the  world. 
Therefore  the  rectification  of  the  moral  revelation,  if  it  be 
true,  must   give   some  "  sign  "  of  the  rectification  of  dis- 
ordered nature  :  and  the  "  sign  "  is — Miracle.   This  is  clear 
in  the  case  of  bodily  cures.     The  miracles  wrought  directly 
on  nature   arc  not  in  the   same  way   rectifications  of  the 


III.]        Method  of  Christ's  Self -Manifestation      125 

disordered  operation  of  natural  law,  but  are  wrought  for 
the  rectification  of  man's  thoughts  of  God  as  He  is  revealed 
in  the  universe.  To  the  man  who  sees  Christ's  miracles 
in  their  true  setting  and  significance,  as  an  inherent  portion 
of  a  moral  unveiling  of  God,  Matthew  Arnold's  remark  ^ 
about  turning  a  pen  into  a  penwiper  is  simply  beside  the 
point.  Nor  will  he  be  much  affected  by  Emerson's  con- 
temptuous description  of  miracle  as  "  Monster,"  because 
"  it  is  not  one  with  the  blowing  clover  and  the  falling 
rain"; 2  for  he  recognises  that  the  clover  and  the  rain 
do  not  represent  the  highest  principles  of  a  universe  in 
which  God  manifests  Himself,^  and  that  a  miracle  violates 
superficial  uniformity  only  "  in  the  interests  of  deeper 
law."  ^ 

There  is  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  many  writers 
who  themselves  accept  the  miracles  to  minimise  their 
importance,  as  if  the  Gospel  were  best  commended  by 
saying  as  little  about  them  as  possible.  Even  as  a  policy 
it  is  foredoomed  to  failure.  The  whole  Christian  revela- 
tion is  penetrated  with  the  supernatural,  and  the  repudia- 
tion or  surrender  of  it  in  the  sphere  of  nature  will  not 
lessen  by  an  iota  the  antagonism  of  unbelief  to  it  in  the 
spiritual  sphere  of  Christ's  person  and  man's  regeneration. 
Nay,  whatever  difficulties  exist  in  regard  to  it  are  intensi- 
fied, not  decreased,  by  confining  the  miraculous  to  a 
limited  or  sectional  area.  Men  are  not  likely  to  possess, 
or  long  to  retain,  a  very  deep  conviction  of  the  unique 
divine  power  which  Christ  introduced  into  the  world,  if 
they  believe  that  His  capacity  to  deliver  was   barred   by 

^  Literature  and  Doguia,  p.  95. 

2  Address  at  Divinity  College,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 

*  See  Note  18,  p.  408,  "  The  false  view  of  Miracle." 

*  Gore,  Bavipton  Lectures,  p.  45. 


126      ]\Tcthod  of  Christ' s  Self- Manifestation     [Lect. 

inexorable  law  from  dealing  with  physical  evils.  Jesus, 
indeed,  always  spoke  of  His  miracles  as  a  subordinate  part 
of  His  self-revelation.  They  had  two  sides,  a  natural  and 
a  spiritual :  as  natural,  they  were  marvellous  displays  of 
power;  as  spiritual,  they  were  an  unveiling  of  the  moral 
character  and  purpose  of  God.  But  while  all  men  could 
see  the  former  side,  only  those  who  already  possessed 
some  spiritual  appreciation  could  perceive  the  latter,  which 
constituted  their  message.  Hence  the  miracles  had  to  be 
preceded  or  accompanied  by  Christ's  teaching  and  conduct 
as  their  interpretation,  as  the  means  whereby  their  real 
meaning  as  a  divine  work  might  be  borne  home.  But  when 
that  interpretation  made  no  impression  upon  men,  and 
the  miracles  were  the  only  sign  to  them  of  a  supernatural 
authority,  the  faith  to  which  they  gave  rise  was  destitute 
of  ethical  quality.  It  became  mere  superstition.  It  is 
for  this  reason  Christ  says,  "If  they  hear  not  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded,  if  one 
rise  from  the  dead."  ^  The  soul  which  is  destitute  of 
spiritual  need  and  aspiration  cannot  have  these  awaked 
in  it  by  an  outward  marvel  whose  meaning  it  would  fail 
to  see,  and  simply  pervert.  But  to  acknowledge  this  is 
very  different  from  saying  that  miracle  is  of  no  account 
for  the  formation,  and  still  more  for  the  quickening,  of  a 
true  faith.  The  faith  which  is  necessary  to  apprehend 
its  significance  and  appropriateness  is  in  turn  confirmed 
by   it. 

The  common  saying,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the 
note  of  every  intelligent  apologist,  "  We  believe  in  the 
miracles  because  we  believe  in  Christ,  not  in  Christ 
because  we  believe  in  the   miracles,"  fs   true,  so   far  as   it 

1  Luke  xvi.  31, 


III.]        Method  of  Chris fs  Self -I\Ianifestatio7i      127 

means  that  the  miracles  derive  their  credibility  and  their 
impressiveness  for  us  from  their  relation  to  Christ  and 
the  purposes  of  His  life ;  but  it  is  not  true,  if  it  means 
that  they  constitute  a  mere  burden  to  belief.  They  are, 
on  the  contrary,  a  real  alleviation  of  the  burden  ;  they 
make  faith  in  the  moral  miracle  of  Jesus  more  self- 
consistent  and  reasonable  by  their  revelation  that  the 
whole  universe,  outward  as  well  as  inward,  is  under  the 
sway  of  a  restorative  and  redeeming  love.  The  more 
we  examine  this  question,  the  more  will  the  verdict  of 
Mr.  Myers  commend  itself.  "  The  common  sense  of 
mankind  will  assuredly  refuse  to  concur  with  the  view, 
often  expressed  both  in  the  scientific  and  the  theological 
camps,  according  to  which  the  marvels  of  the  New 
Testament  history  are  after  all  unimportant,  that  the 
spiritual  content  of  the  Gospel  is  everything,  and  religion 
and  science  alike  may  be  glad  to  be  rid  of  the  miracles 
as  soon  as  possible.  .  .  .  According  to  the  cruder  view 
of  the  Gospel  wonders,  indeed,  this  would  be  reasonable 
enough.  To  wish  to  convert  men  by  magic,  to  prove 
theological  dogmas  by  upsetting  the  sequences  of  things, 
this  is  neither  truly  religious  nor  truly  scientific.  But 
if  these  Gospel  signs  and  wonders  are  considered  as 
indications  of  laws  which  embrace,  and  in  a  sense  unite, 
the  seen  and  the  unseen  worlds,  then  surely  it  is  of 
immense  importance  to  science  that  they  should  occur 
anywhere,  and  of  immense  importance  to  Christianity 
that  they  should  occur  in  connection  with  the  foundation 
of  that  faith."  1 

3.   Interwoven   with   Teaching   and    Miracles   as   the 
third  factor  in  Christ's  self-unveiling  was  the  Influence  of 

*  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Essays :  Modern,  p.  223. 


128      Method  of  Christ's  Self- Manifestation     [Lect. 

His  Personal  Presence,  We  are  apt  to  depreciate  its 
potency  in  comparison  with  the  other  two,  just  because 
personal  influence  is  so  subtle  in  its  operation,  because 
it  does  not,  like  teaching  and  miracle,  formally  challenge 
a  verdict.  Yet  everyone  knows  that  the  hold  which  a 
moral  leader  has  over  his  followers  is  not  created  simply 
by  the  thrilling  utterances  or  heroisms  of  great  moments. 
By  these,  indeed,  he  first  arrests  and  inspires  them.  But 
their  belief  in  him  only  gains  depth  and  completeness, 
if  those  quieter  hours  which  show  the  real  man  reveal 
the  same  spirit  that  shines  so  brilliantly  at  special  times. 
Every  part  of  conduct  adds  its  colour  to  the  impression. 
The  tone  in  which  he  speaks,  his  bearing  under  sus- 
picion, his  reserve,  his  silences,  are  the  deep  roots  out  of 
which  alone  springs  that  sure  confidence  which,  as 
Burke  says,  "  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth."  This  fact,  true 
of  all  men,  has  a  double  force  in  the  case  of  Christ. 
For  His  teaching  and  miracles  all  tended  to  throw  the 
emphasis  on  Himself,  and  thus  to  compel  others  to  mark 
every  indication  of  His  inward  life.  Even  if  men  had 
been  desirous  of  drawing  a  distinction  between  the 
preacher  and  His  message,  as  is  so  often  done  to  show 
that  the  imperfection  of  an  individual  is  no  disproof  of 
the  wisdom  of  his  words.  He  made  it  impossible  for 
them.  He  did  not  wish  them  to  look  away  from  Him 
to  God,  but  to  see  God  in  Him.  The  more  they  saw  of 
Him,  the  longer  they  continued  with  Him,  the  better. 
When  Paul  had  proclaimed  his  message,  and  men 
received  it,  they  could  do  without  him.  It  worked  out 
its  own  effect,  by  bringing  them  under  a  divine  power 
which  gradually  subdued  and  took  possession  of  them. 
Further  intercourse  with   him  would,  of  course,  illustrate 


III.]       Method  of  Christ's  Self -Manifestation        129 

and  vivify  it ;  but  it  was  not  indispensable.  It  was 
indispensable  for  the  establishment  of  full  faith  in 
Christ's  message,  for  the  message  itself  was  a  progressive 
manifestation  in  life. 

B.  From  the  first  public  appearance  of  Jesus  His 
characteristic  demand  from  all  who  showed  any  capacity  of 
spiritual  reception  was,  "  Follow  Me."  Obedience  to  this 
involved  in  many  cases  no  more  than  a  prolonging  of  inter- 
course with  Him,  and  a  frequent  renewal  of  it ;  in  others, 
it  implied  the  total  abandonment  of  earthly  occupation.^ 
Not  a  few,  like  the  women  who  ministered  to  Him  of 
their  substance,  accompanied  Him  in  His  journeys.  Yet 
an  increasing  band  of  miscellaneous  adherents,  more  or 
less  identified  with  Him,  was  not  sufficient  for  His 
purpose.  What  was  requisite  was  a  special  circle  of 
selected  spirits  with  whom  He  held  constant  relations  and  on 
whom  the  totality  of  His  self -rev  elation^  His  teachings  His 
miracles y  His  personal  iftfluence^  could  be  brotcght  to  bear. 

It  is  needless  to  entangle  ourselves  with  the  ques- 
tion whether  what  is  called  Christ's  ministry  in  Eastern 
Galilee — closing  with  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand, 
which  marks  a  turning-point  in  the  attitude  of  the  people 
towards  Him — extended  to  a  year,  or  to  several  months, 
or  only  to  three  weeks.  The  chronology  of  His  life  is 
a  problem  of  which  no  more  than  approximate  solutions 
are  now  possible.^  It  was  during  that  period  in  Eastern 
Galilee,  and  soon  after  its  commencement,  that  "  He 
appointed  Twelve  that  they  might  be  with  Him,  and  that 
He  might  send  them  forth  to  preach."  ^     Some  of  them 

^  See  Bruce,  Training  of  the  Twelve,  pp.  17,  18,  29. 
"  See  Note  14,  p.  401. 
3  Mark  iii.  14. 


130     Method  of  Christ' s  Self -Manifestation     [Lect. 

had  attached  themselves  to  Him  when  He  first  appeared 
beside  Jordan ;  others,  only  after  the  opening  of  His 
Galilean  ministry.  They  were  already  disciples,  when 
they  were  called  to  the  privilege  of  a  close  and  abiding 
intimacy.  Through  them  Christ  was  to  become  a  living 
power  for  humanity.  The  Apostolate  was  no  happy 
accident :  it  was  the  necessary  condition  of  a  revelation 
in  personality. 

The  education  to  which  He  subjected  them  in  pre- 
paration for  this  destiny,  was  of  a  dual  character.  They 
were  a  school,  yet  a  school  not  apart  from  the  world, 
but  in  it.  On  the  one  hand,  He  could  not  train  them 
by  confining  Himself  exclusively  to  them.  No  private 
instruction  however  full,  even  aided  and  illumined  by  the 
perpetual  witness  of  His  example,  could  have  attained 
the  end.  He  had  to  reach  them  through  others.  They 
had  to  see  Him  in  the  daily  experience  of  common  life, 
in  contact  with  human  suffering  and  sin,  with  captious 
opponents  and  deceitful  friends.  By  this  means  they 
were  drawn  to  Him  at  the  first;  and  without  the 
continuance  of  it.  His  self- revelation  would  have  been 
arrested.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  were  no  longer, 
as  formerly,  part  of  the  general  multitude  ;  they  were 
permitted  to  share  His  friendship.  When  His  other 
hearers  had  departed.  He  answered  their  questions, 
resolved  their  perplexities,  led  them  into  the  deeper 
meanings  of  His  words.  Thus  the  public  and  the 
private  phases  of  His  life  interpreted  each  other  for  them. 
Whether  or  not  this  double  education  was  first  carried 
on  for  a  whole  year  in  the  vicinity  of  Capernaum  and 
the  Lake,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  continued 
at    least    for    some    months    during    His    journeys    into 


III.]       Method  of  Chrisfs  Self-Manifestation       1 3 1 

Phoenicia  and  half-Gentile  Decapolis  and  the  uplands 
of  Northern  Galilee,  where  the  opportunities  for  quiet 
communion  with  the  disciples  were  much  greater  than 
among  the  populous  villages  in  which  His  work  began. 
Stroke  by  stroke  He  was  deepening  His  imprint  upon 
them.  Conceive,  for  example,  the  effect  produced  by 
the  one  fact  that  He  who  had  chosen  them  to  be  not 
servants  but  friends,  to  dwell  with  Him  as  members  of 
one  family,  yet  never  mingled  His  prayer  with  theirs. 
In  the  heart  of  the  intimacy  there  remained  a  great  self- 
withdrawal,  an  unshared  loneliness  continually  declaring 
itself,  yet  in  such  wise  as  only  to  deepen  their  reverence, 
not  to  chill  their  affection — 

"Like  aught  that  for  its  grace  may  be 
Dear,  and  yet  dearer  for  its  mystery."  ^ 

Towards  the  close  of  that  period  in  Northern  Galilee 
Jesus  saw  the  growing  conviction  of  their  souls  regarding 
Him,  and  by  a  direct  question  ^  brought  it  to  clear 
consciousness  and  utterance.  His  Messiahship  was  not 
a  declaration  on  His  part,  but  a  discovery  on  theirs, 
an  inference  to  which,  under  the  illumination  of  the 
Spirit,  they  were  inevitably  driven  by  what  they  had 
experienced   in   His   presence. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realise  how  decisive  a  moment 
the  acknowledgment  of  His  Messianic  claim  was  to  the 
disciples.  It  gave  definite  form  to  their  belief  in  Him. 
However  sincere  might  be  their  convictions  hitherto 
concerning    His    supreme    authority  as   sent    from   God, 

1  Shelley,  "  Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty." 

2  Matt.    xvi.    13.      See   Note  19,    p.  409,    "Dr.    Martineau   on    Peter's 
confession  of  Jesus'  Messiahship." 


132     Method  of  Chrisfs  Self- Manifestation     [Lect. 

still  they  were  somewhat  vague  and  variable ;  henceforth 
they  were  gathered  up  and  unified,  and  stamped  by 
Jesus  Himself  with  the  seal  of  the  great  Jewish  Hope. 
Yet  it  is  just  here  that  the  deepest  pathos  in  His  rela- 
tions to  the  disciples  begins.  He  had  trained  them  up 
to  that  point  where  they  could  recognise  for  themselves 
that  He  was  the  expected  Messiah,  and  where  it  was 
possible  for  Him  to  accept  the  title.  Had  He  assumed 
it  from  the  first,  they  would  at  once  have  resented  His 
use  of  it,  while  He  walked  in  lowliness  before  men.  But 
the  preparation  which  they  had  since  undergone  had 
stirred  within  them  nobler  thoughts  of  God  and  man. 
He  had  so  fascinated  them  by  the  lofty  spirituality  of 
His  teaching  and  life,  that  they  now  clung  to  Him  even 
in  spite  of  His  continued  frustration  of  their  desires.  It 
is  this  belief  in  Him,  notwithstanding  His  perpetual 
contradiction  of  their  hopes,  that  makes  the  closing  six 
months  of  their  fellowship  so  touching  a  tragedy.  He 
welcomed  that  belief,  because  He  knew  that  it  was  well 
warranted,  and  that  He  was  to  be  to  them  not  less  than 
they  thought  but  more,  though  this  something  more 
meant  also  something  very  different. 

Thus  it  was  that  while  He  accepted  the  Messianic 
name,  He  was  ever  labouring  to  re-interpret  and  trans- 
mute its  significance.  He  sought  to  impress  upon  them 
the  certainty  of  His  suffering  and  death ;  but  to  speak 
only  of  these,  and  not  of  the  resurrection  which  was  to 
follow,  would  have  been  to  convey  to  them  the  false 
idea  that  His  work  was  a  failure,  and  that  their  personal 
communion  with  Him  would  be  at  an  end.  Yet  every 
reference  to  the  resurrection  only  undid  the  impression 
which    His    announcement   of   the   death   was    fitted  to 


III.]        Me tJiod  of  Christ' s  Self- Manifestation       133 

make.  Some,  indeed,  have  maintained  that  the  prophecies 
of  His  "rising  again"  were  read  back  by  the  disciples 
from  their  after  reflection.  But  the  whole  character  of 
the  narrative  shows  that  the  intimations  of  the  approach- 
ing catastrophe  made  little  impression  upon  them  ;  that 
the  manner  in  which  Jesus  referred  to  it  always  implied 
that  His  outward  defeat  would  be  temporary,  and  His 
real  victory  eternal.  It  was  not  possible  for  Him  to 
explain  to  them  at  that  stage  how  His  communion  with 
them  in  the  Spirit  would  be  closer  than  any  intercourse 
He  held  with  them  on  earth.  Only  through  the  experi- 
ence of  the  pain  could  they  come  to  its  illumination. 
They  must  live  through  it  to  understand  it.  All  He 
could  do  was  to  supply  them  now  with  the  facts  which  a 
later  and  happier  hour  would  interpret.  This  was  their 
trial ;  it  was  His  also. 

So  when  the  final  disaster  broke,  it  left  them  scattered, 
helpless.  Yet  is  it  not  plain  that  that  single  fact  would 
be  the  gravest  censure  upon  Jesus,  had  He  only  been 
and  felt  Himself  to  be,  as  many  affirm,  a  great  Teacher 
of  divine  truth?  How  easy  it  would  have  been  for  Him 
to  tell  them,  "  I  am  about  to  die ;  but  the  message 
which  I  have  delivered  to  you  of  the  Father's  love  is 
imperishable.  It  will  yet  gladden  humanity.  Its 
triumph  does  not  depend  upon  Me ;  I  have  been  but  the 
chosen  voice  of  God  for  its  proclamation.  And  now  My 
time  has  come ;  but  be  of  good  cheer,  the  Father  is  with 
you  always."  As  a  mere  prophet,  it  was  His  imperative 
duty  thus  to  take  farewell.  But  when  they  stood  at  the 
close  of  the  apocalypse,  and  searched  their  hearts  for  its 
meaning,  they  had  nothing  to  declare,  which  had  any 
power  or  significance  apart  from  His  continued  presence. 


134  Method  of  Chrisfs  Self-Manifestation  [Lect.  m. 

His  message  had  disappeared  with  Himself.  A  clearer 
proof  could  not  be  given  that  if  Jesus  was  no  more  than 
a  Teacher,   His   teaching  was   a  failure. 

But  if  His  design  was  not  simply  to  teach  but  to 
bind  the  disciples  to  Himself,  He  could  have  adopted 
no  more  effective  method.  In  its  slowness  and  indirect- 
ness lay  its  incomparable  power.  It  appears  a  long 
way  round ;  but  it  was  in  truth  the  shortest  and  surest 
way  to  the  goal.  The  influence  which  He  had  on  their 
opinions  was  the  least  part  of  His  mastery.  They  had 
not  reached,  and  could  not  reach,  while  He  was  with 
them  the  recognition  of  His  essential  Deity;  but  He  had 
made  attachment  to  Himself  so  much  a  part  of  their 
inmost  being — their  thought,  feeling,  and  conscience — 
that  ultimately  it  could  only  find  in  such  recognition  its 
rational  explanation  and  fulfilment.  Even  when  the 
shattering  blow  had  fallen,  which  seemed  to  them  utter 
ruin,  they  did  not  stop  to  compassionate  themselves  for 
their  pursuit  of  a  delusion,  or  upbraid  His  memory  for 
imposing  on  them  unrewarded  trials.  They  loved  and 
longed  for  Him  as  deeply  as  ever  ;  though  they  would 
have  found  it  impossible  to  analyse  or  unfold  to  others 
the  causes  of  their  faith,  which  lay  in  the  accumulated 
witness  of  a  manifold   experience. 


LECTURE    IV. 

THE   TRANSITION   FROM   THE   HISTORICAL 
TO   THE   SPIRITUAL   CHRIST. 


135 


SYNOPSIS. 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ :  belongs  to  a  different  category  from  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Lazarus. 

The  Appearances  of  the  Risen  Christ. 
I.  Their  Objectivity. 

Failure  of  the  Vision  Plypothesis. 
Value  of  St.  Paul's  testimony. 

Witness  of  the  first  apostles,  though  referring  to  an  exceptional 
experience  of  their  own,  capable  of  refutation,  if  untrue. 

II.  Their  Unique  Character,  as  uniting  the  earthly  and  the  spiritual. 

Wcizsacker  on  the  different  layers  of  tradition. 

The  two  contradictory  aspects  are  of  the  essence  of  the  problem 
which  the  Appearances  were  meant  to  solve :  the  revelation  of 
the  spiritual  in  a  world  of  sense-perception. 

This  union  of  attributes  merely  temporary,  for  a  specific  purpose. 

Why  the  Appearances  were  vouchsafed  only  to  believers. 

Not  the  creation  of  a  new  faith,  but  the  reinstatement  and  trans- 
figuration of  the  old  one. 

The  validity  of  the  Resurrection  depended  on  two  correlated  factors  : 
the  outward  event  and  the  inward  susceptibility. 

Its  place  in  Apologetics. 

The  Ritschlian  disparagement  of  the  Resurrection. 

Herrmann's  view  of  the  '  inner  life  '  of  Jesus. 

Misreads  the  growth  of  the  Apostolic  faith. 

The  Risen  life  of  Christ  not  merely  an  inference  from  His  sinlessness,  but  part 

of  the  same  objective  divine  manifestation  in  humanity. 
The  self-contradictions  of  Herrmann's  theory. 


i:^ 


LECTURE    IV. 

The  Transition  from  the  Historical  to  the 
Spiritual  Christ. 

We  have  hitherto  been  considering  the  hfe  of  Jesus  as 
He  appears  in  history.  The  underlying  purpose  of  all 
His  relations  to  His  disciples  was  the  creation  of  attach- 
ment to  Himself,  as  the  bringer  of  the  divine  kingdom, 
as  the  mediator  of  the  Father's  grace.  But  that  attach- 
ment had  for  them  one  indispensable  condition,  the  con- 
tinuance of  His  earthly  presence.  When  the  catastrophe 
of  the  Crucifixion  overtook  them,  it  left  nothing  but  a 
lingering  regret  for  a  bygone  blessedness.  How  then 
did  they  arrive  soon  after  at  the  indomitable  conviction, 
not  only  of  the  persistence  of  His  personal  life,  but  of 
His  assured  triumph  as  Lord  of  all,  leading  them  to 
reconstrue  the  appalling  death  as  an  additional  demon- 
stration of  His  Messianic  claim  ? 

Frequently  Christ's  resurrection  is  argued  both  by 
those  who  accept  and  those  who  deny  it,  as  if  it  were 
merely  a  question  of  whether  a  dead  man  had  returned 
to  life.  But  this  is  to  misconceive  it  altogether.  It 
does  not  belong  to  the  same  category  as  the  resurrection 
of  Lazarus ;  the  purpose  of  it  was  different,  and  the  tests 
applicable  to  it  are  different.  Lazarus  was  restored  out 
of  the  tomb  to  precisely  the  same  human   life  as  before. 

137 


J 


8  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 


He  resumed  his  place  under  the  same  conditions  of 
mortaUty  to  which  he  was  formerly  subject,  and  which 
would  again  assert  their  thrall  over  him.  But  Christ's 
resurrection  was  not  a  temporary  reversal  of  the  laws  of 
sin  and  death,  but  a  permanent  supersession  of  them  by 
a  higher  law  in  which  mortality  was  swallowed  up  of 
life :  it  was  the  revelation  of  a  victorious  spiritual  life 
under  forms  which  made  it  recognisable  by  those  who 
still  dwelt  in  a  world  of  sense-perception.  This  dual 
quality  pertains  to  the  essence  of  the  manifestation,  and 
gives  it  its  specific  meaning.  If  Christ's  resurrection 
were  amenable  to  the  same  tests  as  any  of  the  three 
miracles  of  raising  the  dead  attributed  to  Him,  it  would 
contain  no  more  than  they  a  guarantee  of  a  triumphant 
immortality.  It  appeals  therefore  very  largely  to  another 
type  of  evidence.  What  this  is  will  become  clear  at  a 
later  stage.  Meanwhile  it  is  enough  to  note  that  there 
are  two  inseparable  factors  in  the  witness  borne  by  the 
disciples :  first,  the  objective  reality  of  the  risen  Christ's 
appearances  to  them,  and  secondly,  their  peculiar  and 
U7iparalleled  nature. 

I.  And  first,  as  to  the  objectivity.  Some  of  the 
theories  propounded  to  discredit  it  have  been  eliminated 
from  all  rational  discussion.  The  only  interesting  thing 
about  them  now  is  that  they  should  ever  have  been  sug- 
gested. The  hypothesis  of  Reimarus,  that  the  disciples 
stole  the  body  of  their  Master  and  then  proclaimed  that 
the  "  Crucified  "  had  risen,  contains  no  single  element  of 
a  probable  solution.  Its  gratuitous  offensiveness  is  only 
surpassed  by  its  grotesque  inadequacy.  Hardly  less 
absurd  is  the  view  of  Paulus  that  Jesus  did  not  really 
die,  that   on   the   Cross   He  only  fell   into  a  death-swoon, 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritual  Christ  139 

from  which  He  afterwards  recovered,  when  His  body  was 
laid  in  the  cool  air  of  the  cavern-tomb,  permeated  with 
the  restoring  fragrance  of  the  spices.  A  grain  of 
commonsense,  as  Strauss  has  shown  in  a  passage  which 
is  almost  too  familiar  for  quotation,^  is  sufficient  to 
destroy  it.  A  half-dead  Christ  struggling  out  of  the 
sepulchre  could  not  have  given  to  the  disciples  their  con- 
viction that  He  was  the  conqueror  of  death.  It  would 
rather  have  weakened  the  impression  which  He  had 
made  upon  them  in  life,  and  could  by  no  possibility 
have  transmuted  their  sorrow  into  enthusiasm.  And 
even  if  He  had  so  returned,  the  difficulties  of  the 
theory  are  only  beginning :  it  is  involved  in  inextricable 
entanglements  as  to  what  subsequently  became  of  His 
body. 

The  Vision  hypothesis  is  the  only  one  which  is 
worth  examining  to-day.  That  it  presents  some  plausi- 
bility is  shown  by  the  many  forms  it  has  assumed.  It 
gains  a  certain  support  from  modern  feeling  in  the 
tribute  it  pays  to  a  great  soul,  and  to  the  fascinating 
power  He  wields  of  winning  a  measureless  devotion  from 
His  followers.  In  Renan's  rendering  ^  it  is  seen  at  its 
worst.  '■  Love  worked  the  miracle ;  it  discovered  in  some 
sudden  noise  or  tone  or  atmospheric  effect  the  sign  of 
the  risen  Lord.  Sorrow  was  at  once  lost  in  ecstasy. 
Mary  of  Magdala  created  the  belief  She  first  saw  the 
vision ;  then  the  others,  quickened  by  her  enthusiasm, 
had  their  visions  too.'  Such  an  account  is  its  own 
refutation.  The  apostles  who  afterwards  maintained 
their  witness  with  such  sanity  and   practical  judgment, 

^  New  Life  of  Jesus,  i.  142. 
^  Les  Apotres^  p.  2  fif. 


140  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

were  not  likely  to  be  started  on  their  course  by  a  violent 
attack  of  hysterical  monomania.^ 

In  the  rational  form  of  the  Vision  theory  there  are 
two  stages.  First,  it  is  pointed  out  that  Paul,  in  his 
statement  of  the  evidence  for  the  resurrection,  ranks 
Christ's  appearance  to  himself  as  of  precisely  the  same 
kind  and  value  as  the  appearances  to  the  original 
apostles.  But  in  his  case  the  vision  was  purely  sub- 
jective. He  was  frequently  thrown  into  an  ecstatic 
condition,  and  beheld  visions  in  which  the  subjective 
had  all  the  force  and  vividness  of  objectivity .^  He  was 
in  this  mood  at  the  great  crisis  of  his  conversion.  The 
three-fold  narrative  in  Acts  of  what  then  happened 
is  not  to  be  trusted  :  it  is  a  picturesque  development. 
His  own  direct  testimony  in  Galatians  ^  does  not  refer  to 
any  outward  appearance,  but  to  an  inward  revelation 
of  Christ.  In  no  other  sense  than  the  spiritual  one, 
according  to  Paul,  did  the  first  disciples  see  the  risen 
Lord.  Secondly,  these  optical  illusions  which  they  took 
for  objective  appearances  can  easily  be  accounted  for. 
For  some  time  after  the  Crucifixion  they  were  prostrate 
with  grief;  but  gradually  the  endearing  memories  of  the 
past  re-asserted  themselves,  and  brought  Christ  near  to 
them.  Thrown  back  by  the  mysterious  collapse  of  their 
hopes  on  a  more  eager  searching  of  the  Scriptures,  they 
found  there  passages  which  spoke  of  death  as  the  very 
way  to  a  higher  life ;  and  in  the  light  of  the  bitter  experi- 
ence through  which  they  had  passed  they  read  these  into 
connection  with  the  redeeming  work  of  the  Messiah. 
"After  two  days  will  He  revive  us:   on  the  third  day  He 

^  See  Essays:  Modern^  by  F.  W.  II.  Myers,  p.  222. 

^  2  Cor.  xii.  I.  8  Gal.  i.  13-17. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  spiritual  Christ  141 

will  raise  us  up  and  we  shall  live  before  Him."  ^  When 
they  returned  to  Galilee,  where  every  familiar  spot 
seemed  consecrated  by  Christ's  presence,  these  vague 
utterances  of  the  prophets  stirred  their  hearts  with  the 
expectation  of  His  re-appearance,  and  out  of  this 
passionate  longing  their  visions  of  Him   were  born. 

Now,  whatever  view  be  taken  of  the  appearance  of 
Christ  to  Paul,  the  attempt  to  use  it  to  the  disparage- 
ment of  the  earlier  appearances  to  the  disciples  is  wholly 
illegitimate.  It  takes  all  meaning  out  of  Paul's  argu- 
ment. He  was  keenly  aware  of  his  apparent  inferiority 
to  the  original  apostles  in  that  he  had  no  personal 
acquaintance  with  Jesus.  Confronted  as  he  was  at 
every  step  by  this  objection,  he  was  perpetually  declar- 
ing that  the  ascended  Christ  had  in  boundless  condescen- 
sion "  appeared  to  him  in  the  way,"  so  that  he  was  an 
apostle,  "  not  from  men,  neither  through  man,  but  through 
Jesus  Christ  and  God  the  Father,  who  raised  Him  from 
the  dead."  ^  His  authority  had  therefore,  he  maintained, 
the  same  direct  guarantee  as  that  of  Peter  or  John.  This 
is  the  idea  which  underlies  the  personal  reference  to  him- 
self as  the  single  witness  of  the  final  Christophany.  The 
objectivity  of  the  appearances  during  the  forty  days  is 
accepted  both  by  Paul  and  by  the  Corinthians  as  beyond 
dispute.  On  whatever  subjects  he  might  differ  from  the 
"  pillar  "  apostles,  he  was  at  one  with  them  in  holding  that 
Christ  was  raised  on  the  third  day.  But  an  actual  rising 
from  the  dead  on  a  specific  day  stands  in  no  harmony 
with  the    notion  of  a   subjective  illusion  :  as   Menegoz  ^ 

1  Hos.  vi.  2,  2  Q.^]   i    j^ 

^  Le  Ptche  et  la  Redempiion  cTapyes  Saint  Paul,  p.   261.     See  also  the 
admirably  succinct  discussion  of  this  point  by  Dr.  Marcus  Dods  in  The  Super- 


142  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

remarks,  "  it  only  accords  with  an  actual  reappear- 
ance." When  he  recounts  the  testimony  of  Peter  and 
James,  and  of  the  five  hundred  of  whom  the  majority 
were  then  alive,  he  is  alluding  to  well-known  facts  which 
had  formed  part  of  his  teaching  at  Corinth.^  The  very 
manner  in  which  he  speaks  of  himself  "  as  one  born  out 
of  due  time,"  ^  clearly  indicates  his  belief  in  the  object- 
ivity of  tJieir  vision,  and  consequently  of  Jiis  own^  which 
he  parallels  to  it.  He  came  too  late  to  witness  one  of 
the  normal  appearances  of  Christ  before  the  ascension ; 
but  no  one  is  born  too  late  to  be  capable  of  spectral 
illusions.  They  may  be  indefinitely  multiplied  and 
repeated.  The  Corinthians  themselves  might  have  had 
them  ;  but  they  knew  that  something  very  different  was 
intended  by  Paul's  formal  catalogue  of  Christ's  appear- 
ances. It  was  a  summary  of  the  universal  faith  of  the 
Church ;  and  it  is  on  the  basis  of  their  acceptance  of  it, 
that  he  proceeds  to  argue  against  the  self-contradiction 
of  believing  in  the  resurrection  of  the  Lord,  while  deny- 
ing the  final  resurrection  of  the  faithful.^ 

Paul's  conversion  took  place  almost  certainly  not 
more  than  five  years  after  the  Crucifixion.*  He  passed 
into  a  Church,  the  foundation  principle  of  which  was 
faith  in  the  risen  Christ.  Though  absent  from  Jerusalem 
at  the  time  of  the  Crucifixion,^  he  returned  soon  after, 
and   threw  himself  immediately  into  a  fierce  antagonism 


nattiralin  Christianity^  pp.  103,  104.  "Why  mention  His  burial,  unless  it 
was  His  bodily  resurrection  he  (Paul)  had  in  view?" 

1  I  Cor.  XV,  3.  -  I  Cor.  xv.  8.  ■'  i  Cor.  xv.  12-19. 

^  So  Weizsiicker,  Apostolic  Age,  vol.  i.  p.  20.  Caspari  argues  in  minute 
detail  for  placing  it  in  the  very  year  of  the  Crucifixion.  See  his  Chronological 
ami  Geographical  Introduction  to  the  Life  of  Christ,  pp.  45-50. 

^  See  Farrar,  Life  and  Worh  of  St.  Paul,  chap.  iv. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritual  Christ  143 

to  the  pestilent  new  heresy.  He  had  the  means  of 
knowing  what  form  it  had  taken  from  the  beginning. 
In  its  central  testimony  it  had  undergone  no  develop- 
ment ;  it  sprang  full-grown  into  life. 

Even  if  we  admit  that  the  story  of  his  conversion  is 
told  in  Acts  with  picturesque  additions,  nothing  is  plainer 
than  that  what  maddened  him  against  the  Christians  was 
just  the  unanimity  and  persistence  with  which  they  pro- 
claimed that  the  Crucified  had  been  approved  by  His 
resurrection  to  be  the  true  Messiah.  Only  to  one  whose 
soul  was  preoccupied  with  this  idea,  none  the  less 
abhorrent  to  him  that  he  was  troubled  with  apprehen- 
sions of  its  possible  truth,  was  such  a  vision  even  con- 
ceivable. The  Gospel  which  he  afterwards  preached  in 
its  two  great  affirmations,  the  significance  of  the  death, 
and  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  was  one 
which  he  in  no  sense  created.  He  "  received  "  it ;  ^  first, 
he  repudiated  it  with  detestation,  and  then  embraced  it 
with  the  fervour  of  entire  conviction.  But  the  first 
disciples  did  not  receive  it.  They  were  themselves  the 
direct  witnesses  of  the  revelation.  They  had  no  such 
predisposing  causes  towards  belief  as  Paul  had  in  the 
consistent  testimony  of  others  and  the  manifest  spiritual 
effects  of  their  faith.  The  discovery  of  the  empty  tomb 
was  a  bewildering  surprise.  Yet,  according  to  all  the 
records,  in  less  than  two  months  they  had  not  merely 
attained  the  unshakable  conviction  that  they  had  many 
times  seen  the  risen  Lord,  but  preached  it  with  an  un- 
faltering calmness,  with  a  steadfast  practicality  which 
never  yet  was  born  of  nervous  overstrain.-      They  saw  no 

^  I  Cor.  XV.  3. 

2  Keini  puts  this  trenchantly.     Die  Geschichte  Jesu  von  Nazara^  vol.  iii. 


144  '^^^  Trafisition  from  the  [Lect. 

more  visions  of  Him.  But  ecstasy  does  not  thus  speedily 
grow  to  a  head  and  then  cease.  Its  manifestations, 
though  in  themselves  sudden,  rise  out  of  a  background 
of  prolonged  absorption,  and  tend  to  increase  in  number 
and  vividness  only  when  the  actualities  round  which  they 
circle  have  gained  through  time  the  glamour  of  endearing 
memories.  The  ultimate  result  which  they  leave  behind 
is  invariably  freakishness  in  judgment,  and  either  feverish 
and  spasmodic  activity  or  utter  prostration.  When  we 
contrast  this  with  the  subsequent  conduct  of  the  apostles, 
their  clear-minded  grasp  of  the  truths  they  promulgated, 
and  their  patient  resoluteness  in  adapting  means  to  ends, 
we  feel  that  the  Vision  theory  only  brings  into  bolder 
relief  the  objectivity  of  the  appearances. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  their  testimony,  however  true 
for  themselves,  was  incapable  of  refutation,  because  the 
appearances,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  were  an  un- 
paralleled experience  vouchsafed  to  them  alone.  At 
a  vital  point  it  touched  matter  of  fact,  which  ordinary 
evidence  could  either  establish  or  disprove.  They  said, 
He  rose  and  we  saw  Him ;  and  thus  their  witness  would 
have  been  discredited,  if  it  could  have  been  shown  either 
that  the  body  still  lay  in  the  grave,  or  had  been  disposed 
of  in  any  other  way.  There  are  those  who  profess  to 
believe  that  its  disappearance  is  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  it  was  cast  with  the  bodies  of  others  con- 
demned as  malefactors  into  the  common  pit,  and  that 
as  it  had  lain  there  for  fifty  days  before  the  disciples 
began  publicly  to  preach  the  resurrection,  the  plain  dis- 
proof of  their  account  was  not  then  practicable.  But 
though  Pentecost  was  the  first  proclamation  of  their 
faith,   yet,   unless    the    Gospels   are  fundamentally   inac- 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  spiritual  C Jurist  145 

curate,  in  less  than  two  full  days  after  the  Crucifixion 
the  disciples  had  become  persuaded  of  the  resurrection. 
Does  anyone  imagine  that  this  belief  of  theirs,  arousing 
them  from  despair,  if  not  to  hope,  at  least  to  wondering 
expectation,  was  wholly  unknown  to  outsiders,  who  wit- 
nessed the  change  in  their  bearing,  and  that  it  never 
reached  the  ears  of  the  authorities  till  it  was  declared  at 
Pentecost  ?  The  incident  related  by  Matthew,^  that  the 
chief  priests  and  elders,  being  told  of  the  empty  tomb, 
bribed  the  soldiers  to  say,  "  His  disciples  came  by  night 
and  stole  Him  away  while  we  slept,"  though  it  is  not 
corroborated  in  any  of  the  other  Gospels,  has,  I  think, 
every  mark  of  probability.  Even  after  an  interval  of 
fifty  days,  the  body  could  not  have  been  either  lost  or 
unrecognisable :  it  could  have  been  produced.  In  any 
case,  if  it  had  simply  received  the  treatment  allotted  to 
criminals,  nothing  was  easier  than  to  bring  forward 
those  who  had  with  their  own  hands  removed  it  from 
the  Cross. 

But  the  hypothesis  is  itself  preposterous.  For, 
according  to  Roman  law,  the  bodies  of  criminals  were 
not  so  treated ;  they  were  given  to  those  who  came 
to  claim  them.^  There  was,  therefore,  nothing  unusual 
in  the  request  which  Joseph  made  to  Pilate  for  leave  to 
take  down  the  body  and  bury  it.  He  was  but  following 
a  common  usage.  Every  one  of  the  four  Gospels 
records  the  incident.^  The  whole  story  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, as  told  by  the  apostles,  implied  that  the  grave  of 
Jesus  was  perfectly  well  known.      It  would  have  been   a 

1  Chap,  xxviii.  II-15. 

-  Godet,  Defence  of  the  Christian  Faith,  pp.  41,  97. 
3  Matt,  xxvii.  58  ;  Mark  xv.  43  ;  Luke  xxiii.  52  ;  John  xix.  -^^^ 
10 


146  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

simple  matter  for  the  Jews  to  have  turned  their  tale  to 
ridicule,  if  it  recounted  visits  to  a  tomb  which  had  no 
existence.  On  the  other  hand,  the  supposition  that  the 
body  lay  for  a  brief  time  in  Joseph's  tomb,  and  was 
then  stealthily  taken  away  by  order  of  the  Jewish 
authorities,  is,  if  possible,  even  more  inconceivable.  For 
its  removal  was  then  a  deliberate  act,  carried  out  by 
special  agents,  who  could  readily  have  been  called  as 
witnesses  to  unmask  an  imposture.  The  unspeakable 
futility  of  every  endeavour  to  explain  by  natural  means 
the  disappearance  of  the  body  of  Jesus  is  a  strong 
corroborative  proof  of  the  apostles'  testimony.^ 

II.  Not  less  important  than  the  objectivity  of  the 
appearances,  and  one  of  the  circumstances  that  help  to 
establish  it,  is  their  unique  character.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  our  purpose  to  discuss  the  question  when  the  Gospels 
were  composed.  Whether  or  not  we  adopt  the  view  held 
by  critics  ^  who  are  not  biassed  in  favour  of  traditional 
opinions,  that  the  first  three  Gospels  were  drawn  up 
between  the  years  60  and  80  of  our  era,  it  cannot  be 
disputed  that  Matthew  and   Luke  ^  contain,  especially  in 

^  The  sudden  and  permanent  transference  of  the  sanctity  of  the  Jewish 
Sabbath  to  the  Lord's  Day  is,  even  if  it  stood  alone,  hardly  accountable  on  the 
Visional  hypothesis ;  and,  when  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  other  lines  of 
evidence,  it  lends  a  very  real,  if  subsidiary,  support  to  the  reahty  of  the 
resurrection  on  the  first  day  of  the  week.  Cf.  Newman  Smyth's  Old  Faiths 
ill  Nexu  Lights,  p.  155;  and  Mair's  Studies  in  the  Christian  Evidences, 
p.  248. 

2  Cf.  Weiss,  Introd.  to  N.  T. ,  vol.  ii.  See  also  I  larnack's  notable  pro- 
nouncement in  his  recent  book,  Die  Chronologie  d.  altchr.  Litt.,  on  the 
substantial  accuracy  of  the  traditional  dates  assigned  to  the  N.T.  writings. 

2  Though  the  last  twelve  verses  of  Mark  are  missing  in  some  ancient 
MSS.,  yet  the  abrupt  way  in  which  the  8th  verse  concludes,  shows  that  it  is 
not  the  real  close  of  the  Gospel,  but  that  the  writer  meant  to  add  some  details 
as  to  the  meeting  of  the  Lord  with  the  disciples  in  Galilee,  referred  to  in  the 
7th  verse.     See  full  discussion  in  Wcstcott  and  Hort. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiidtual  CJiinst  147 

regard  to  such  a  matter  as  the  resurrection,  the  accounts 
which  existed  in  the  days  of  the  first  disciples,  and 
which  had  substantially  received  their  sanction.  They 
simply  record  what  had  long  been  current  in  the  Church 
in  oral  or  written  form.  How  do  they  describe  the 
risen  Christ  ?  When  He  appeared  to  the  women,  they 
held  Him  by  the  feet  and  worshipped  Him :  yet  even 
among  the  Eleven  there  were  some  that  doubted.^  The 
two  disciples  failed  to  recognise  Him  during  a  two  hours' 
journey  till  He  was  made  known  to  them  in  the  break- 
ing of  bread,  and  then  He  vanished  suddenly  from  their 
eyes.^  When  He  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  assembled 
disciples,^  He  seemed  so  strange  to  them,  that  they 
thought  they  had  seen  a  spirit ;  but  He  proved  the 
reality  of  His  return  by  inviting  them  to  touch  Him, 
and  He  showed  them  His  hands  and  His  feet.*  And 
as  they  were  still  incredulous  from  joy.  He  took  a 
piece  of  a  broiled  fish  and  ate  before  them.^  This 
double  aspect  of  His  appearance  is  present  equally  in 
John's  account.^     There  is  the  same  doubt  removed  by 

1  Matt,  xxviii.  9,  17.  ^  Luke  xxiv.  30-32. 

^  John  adds  :   "The  doors  being  shut "  ;  xx.  19. 

•*  Luke  xxiv.  36-43.  Some  ancient  authorities  omit  ver.  40 :  koX  tovto 
eiTTibv  ^dei^ev  airois  ras  xet/sas  koI  rods  Tro'Sas.  But  with  a  slight  modification, 
the  same  statement  occurs  in  John  xx.  20,  where  the  words  are  undisputed. 
These  passages  in  the  Third  and  Fourth  Gospels  probably  describe  the  same 
appearance,  though  there  is  a  discrepancy  in  the  number  of  disciples  present. 
See  Godet,  and  Plummer,  on  S'L  Luke,  in  loc. 

^  The  words  "  and  of  a  honeycomb  "  are  omitted  in  the  best  MSS.  See 
note  in  Westcott  and  Hort. 

^  John  xxi.  Though  this  chapter  forms  an  appendix  to  the  Gospel,  and 
was  written  later,  yet  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  Gospel  was  ever 
published  without  it.  "Either  John  himself  composed  this  piece  some  time 
after  having  finished  the  Gospel,  or  we  have  here  the  work  of  that  circle  of 
friends  and  disciples  who  surrounded  the  apostle  at  Ephesus,  who  had  often 
heard  him  relate  the  facts  contained  in  it,  and  who  have  reproduced  them 


148  TJie  Transition  from  tJic  [Lect. 

the  same  outward  proof.  The  seven  disciples  knew  Him 
not  when  He  stood  on  the  beach ;  but  gradually  they 
were  assured  it  was  He,  as  they  sat  with  Him  at  the 
feast  He  had  prepared,  and  listened  afterwards  to  the 
conversation  in  which  He  pronounced  Peter's  restoration 
and  commission. 

This  blending  of  the  spiritual  and  the  earthly  is 
accompanied  also  by  a  total  change  in  His  relations  to 
them.  Though  He  invites  them  to  handle  Him  and 
see,^  it  is  only  for  the  purpose  of  convincing  them  that 
He  is  no  phantasmal  apparition,  and  of  creating  faith  in 
Him  as  their  risen  Master.  But  where  this  faith  already 
existed  as  in  Mary  Magdalene,  He  forbids  her  to  touch 
Him.^  He  is  no  longer  their  companion.  He  speaks 
of  the  time  "  when  I  was  yet  with  you."  ^  Not  only  are 
His   visits    occasional,   subservient    to   a   special    end    of 

in  his  own  language.  It  is  of  small  importance  which  of  these  suppositions 
is  chosen.  Yet  we  must  say  that  the  first  alternative,  as  it  seems  to  us,  is  to 
be  preferred."     Godet,  Covun.  in  loc.     So  also  Westcott. 

^  It  is  not  said  that  Thomas  put  his  finger  into  the  print  of  the  nails,  or 
that  the  disciples  applied  the  test  of  touch  at  the  invitation  of  Jesus  (John 
xxi.  27,  28;  Luke  xxiv.  39,  40).  But  in  Matt,  xxviii.  9,  we  read,  "They 
(the  women)  took  hold  of  His  feet  and  worshipped  Him."  If  Thomas  or  the 
other  disciples  did  not  actually  touch  Him  (which  cannot  be  shown),  it  was 
because  they  were  so  convinced,  by  sight,  of  His  reality,  that  they  abstained 
out  of  reverence  from  subjecting  Him  to  the  further  test.  That  the  account 
leaves  it  possible  for  us  to  infer  that  they  refrained  from  doing  so,  is  the 
clearest  indication  of  verisimilitude.  This  is  not  the  way  in  which  legend 
works.  It  would  have  "made  assurance  doubly  sure,"  by  asserting  actual 
contact. 

-  John  XX.  17.  The  verb  ^7rre(T^ai  signifies  here  more  than  "to  touch." 
It  describes  a  taking  hold  of  one,  with  a  view  to  possession.  The  prohibition 
of  Jesus  to  Mary  Magdalene  meant  that  His  earthly  intercourse  with  His 
disciples,  which  she  desired  to  have  restored,  was  impossible  now,  and  that 
its  place  would  be  taken  by  a  new  and  higher  union  not  attainable  as  yet, 
but  only  to  be  realised  when  He  had  wholly  completed  His  earthly  self- 
manifestation.     See  Westcott,  and  Godet. 

^  Luke  xxiv.  44. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritual  Christ  149 

revelation,  but  His  attitude  throughout  has  a  strange 
aloofness.  He  stands,  as  it  were,  apart  from  them, 
above  them.  He  calms  their  troubled  hearts ;  but  He 
does  not  identify  Himself  with  them.  The  former  inti- 
macy is  past  for  ever. 

Weizsacker,^  in  a  very  ingenious  analysis  of  the 
Gospel  accounts,  argues  that  these  two  phases  in  the 
appearances  of  Christ  represent  different  layers  of  tradi- 
tion. The  Christophanies  were,  he  says,  in  their  earliest 
form  purely  ghostly  or  visional ;  but,  as  time  went  on, 
the  craving  for  palpable  proofs,  together  with  popular 
realistic  ideas  as  to  the  return  of  the  dead  to  life,  led  to 
a  gradual  materialising  of  the  visions.  But  if  this  were 
so,  why  did  the  tendency  stop  at  the  middle  point  ? 
Why  did  it  not  work  to  the  total  exclusion  of  the 
impalpable  or  ghostly  element?  Surely  if  this  longing 
for  external  and  indubitable  signs  endowed  a  spectral 
Christ  with  physical  attributes,  it  would  have  eliminated 
every  suggestion  that  seemed  to  imply  His  illusoriness. 
It  would  not  have  left  untouched  those  portions  of 
the  story  which  told  how  affrighted  the  disciples  were 
when  He  stood  among  them,  how  at  first  they  did  not 
recognise  Him,  how  some  doubted  His  identity.  If,  as 
Weizsacker  admits,  the  narratives  shrink  to  the  last  from 
carrying  out  the  physical  conceptions  to  their  logical 
conclusion,  it  is  only  because  they  are  the  genuine 
impression  made  upon  the  witnesses  by  the  mysterious 
facts.  It  is  easy  to  find  variations  in  the  details ;  but 
all  the  more  remarkable  is  the  essential  agreement  even 
in  versions  of  the  same  incident.  The  two  elements  of 
the   spiritual  and   the  physical  are  interwoven   with  the 

^  Apostolic  Age,  vol.  i.  pp.  9-1 1, 


150  The  Transition  from  the  [Lcct. 

texture  of  the  narratives ;  ^  and  even  if  the  former  pre- 
dominates— which  is  very  doubtful — in  what  Weizsacker 
terms  the  earlier  layers  of  the  tradition,  it  is  also 
emphatically  present  in  the  later.^ 

But  these  contradictory  aspects,  instead  of  casting  a 
suspicion  on  the  appearances,  are  of  the  essence  of  the 
problem  which  they  were  intended  to  solve.  Christ 
hovers,  as  it  were,  on  the  border  line  of  two  different 
worlds,  and  partakes  of  the  characteristics  of  both,  jiist 
because  He  is  revealing  the  one  to  the  other.  Had  His 
risen  body  been  but  the  re-assumption  of  the  earthly, 
then  the  indications  of  its  nature  would  have  been  self- 
consistent  ;  but  it  would  have  been  no  revelation  of  His 
final  triumph  over  death,  or  of  another  mode  of  exist- 
ence awaiting  humanity  in  the  hereafter.  If  it  were  to 
bear  such  a  witness,  it  must  be  in  reality  a  spiritual 
body,  with  the  qualities  of  the  higher  sphere  to  which  it 
belonged,  and  yet  retaining  in  part  the  visible  marks 
which  verified  the  revelation  to  human  experience,  and 
demonstrated  the  identity  of  the  present  with  the  past. 

The  visible  marks  were,  as  has  been  seen,  of  the 
most  decided  character.      Some  have  thought  to  lessen 

1  See  Note  20,  p.  411,  "Christ's  Resurrection  as  a  '  process.'" 
~  "There  is  a  false  impression  made  by  the  unusual  consistency  of  the 
Synoptical  Gospels,  which  weakens  unduly  their  testimony  in  the  parts 
where  they  show  more  independence  and  variety.  Of  course  Matthew  and 
Mark,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Luke,  on  the  other,  give  independent  and  vary- 
ing accounts  of  the  resurrection.  But  the  variety  is  caused  by  the  inde- 
pendence ;  it  is  no  greater  than  the  ordinary  variations  of  independent  narra- 
tives, and  it  does  not  invalidate  the  main  fact  of  the  resurrection.  Hut  the 
Synoptical  Gospels,  in  the  main,  in  their  record  of  the  public  ministry  of 
Jesus,  are  interdependent,  and  so  there  is  an  unusual  sameness  about  them. 
This  should  not  weaken  their  testimony,  when  they  become  independent  and 
so  variant."  E.  P.  Gould,  Interuational  Critical  Comm.,  St.  Mark,  pp.  308, 
309.  This  argument  applies  quite  as  strongly  to  the  unique  character  of  the 
resurrection  as  to  the  mere  fact. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spirihia I  Christ  151 

the  difficulty  by  doubting  whether  the  risen  Lord  ought 
to  be  understood  as  actually  partaking  of  human  food. 
They  point  out  that  this  is  the  least  certain,  as  it  is  the 
most  paradoxical,  element  in  the  objective  manifesta- 
tion :  that  it  is  not  said  either  in  the  case  of  the  two 
disciples  at  Emmaus^  or  of  the  seven  beside  the  Lake^ 
that  He  personally  ate  of  the  bread  which  He  distributed 
to  others.  But  on  at  least  one  occasion  ^  His  eating  is 
distinctly  affirmed  ;  which  makes  the  argument  from  the 
silence  of  the  Evangelists  in  the  other  instances  rather 
precarious.  The  words  of  Peter  to  Cornelius,  "  We  did 
eat  and  drink  with  Him  after  He  rose  from  the  dead,"  * 
regarded  by  Weizsacker  as  representing  the  realistic 
shape  which  the  legend  of  the  resurrection  ultimately 
took,  do  not  necessarily  imply  that  this  form  of  inter- 
course was  usual,  or  even  frequent,  but  that  it  simply 
did  take  place.  It  is  useless,  however,  to  discuss  this 
point,  as  if  its  elimination  would  appreciably  lighten  the 
mystery.  Human  eyes  saw  Him ;  human  hands  could 
touch  Him.  But  a  purely  spiritual  body  could  not  thus 
have  been  perceptible  to  ordinary  sense.  That  He  was 
thus  visible  and  tangible  implied  a  condition  not  one 
whit  less  miraculous  than  if  He  partook  of  human  food. 
We  cannot  indeed  conceive  how  this  union  of  opposite 
attributes  was  possible.  It  was  essentially  temporary, 
assumed  for  the  purpose  of  crowning  the  revelation 
already  made  by  Christ  to  the  disciples,  and  of  enabling 
them  to  attain  the  convictions  out  of  which  would  grow 
the  right  interpretation  of  His  earthly  life  and  death. 
They  themselves  felt  that  it  had   in   it   no   permanency, 

1  Luke  xxiv.  30.  2  Jq]^^  xxi.  13. 

^  Luke  xxiv.  43.  4  ^^ts  x.  41. 


152  The  Tra7isition  from  the  [Lect. 

and  that  He  did  not  now  belong  to  them,  or  to  this 
world.  During  the  forty  days  His  body  was  in  a 
transition  state,  and  had  to  undergo  a  further  transforma- 
tion in  entering  into  the  spiritual  sphere,  its  true  home.^ 
Hence  the  appearances  of  the  risen  One  do  not  give,  and 
are  not  intended  to  give,  any  exact  idea  of  the  nature 
of  the  glorified  body,  whether  of  Christ  or  of  believers. 
Their  aim  was  wholly  different :  to  prove  by  adequate 
signs,  to  those  who  had  received  the  ineffaceable  impres- 
sion of  the  character  of  Jesus,  and  had  become  pro- 
foundly convinced  that  in  Him  God's  Kingdom  centred, 
not  only  the  persistence  of  His  life  through  death,  but 
its  dominance  over  it,  the  triumph  of  His  total  human 
personality  over  every  alien  influence  whether  spiritual  or 
material. 

Now  the  conviction  of  His  spiritual  supremacy  was 
not  a  new  thought  to  them.  They  had  in  a  manner 
reached  it  before  His  ministry  closed.  But  the  Cruci- 
fixion shattered  it,  emptied  it  of  all  real  force,  turned  it 
into  a  memory.  What  restored  it  and  re-endowed  it 
with  greater  reality  than  ever  ?  Just  the  demonstration 
that  no  material  forces  held  lordship  over  Him,  that  the 
law  of  mortality  had  for  Him  been  not  merely  arrested 
for  a  time,  but  finally  abolished  ;  that,  in  a  word.  He  had 
not  been  rescued  from  death,  but  had  passed  through  it, 
and  put  on  immortality.  The  mere  belief  that  Christ 
still  lived,  i.e.  that  His  spirit  had  entered  the  spirit- 
world,  could  never  have  inspired  them  with  their  con- 
fident assurance  of  His  victory,  so  long  as  His  death 
remained   to   contradict  them. 

His    resurrection   is   in   the    New  Testament   the   in- 

^  Sec  Note  21,  p.  412,  "The  Ascension  find  the  Forty  Days." 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spii'itttal  Christ  153 

disputable  mark  of  the  divine /^w^r,  the  ultimate  warrant 
for  faith  in  God's  promise  to  establish  His  Kingdom  ; 
"  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power  ...  by  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead."  ^  Through  it  the  apostles  had 
their  former  faith  in  His  spiritual  authority  requickened, 
deepened,  illuminated.  In  what  other  way  could  this 
have  been  done  than  by  the  manifestation  of  a  risen 
Christ,  who,  though  spiritual,  still  retained  the  outward 
form  by  which  they  could  recognise  His  identity,  and 
whose  presence  spoke  of  an  unseen  life  in  the  language 
of  earth  and  time?  The  temporary  union  in  Him  of 
two  diverse  modes  of  being  will  not  seem  strange  to  us 
if  we  realise  that  only  by  this  means  could  God  assure 
us  that  the  redemption  of  Christ  was  no  less  the  rectifica- 
tion of  the  material  than  of  the  spiritual  universe.  Yet 
it  is  precisely  such  an  assurance  that  is  needed  to  give 
religious  faith  a  final  basis  and  guarantee  by  showing 
that  it  cannot  be  explained  as  a  psychological  hallucina- 
tion. Had  the  recorded  appearances  been  the  result  of 
a  growing  legend,  it  is  incredible  that  they  would  have 
exhibited  throughout  a  variety  of  minutely  detailed 
circumstances,  just  this  combination  of  transcendence 
and  objective  reality.  The  one  side  would  have  pre- 
dominated to  the  absorption  or  obliteration  of  the  other. 
Closely  connected  with  this  unique  quality  in  the 
appearances  is  the  fact,  attested  by  all  the  evangelic 
accounts,  and  proclaimed  by  the  apostles,^  that  they  were 

^  Rom.  i.  4 ;  cf.  2  Cor.  xiii.  4  ;  Rom.  vi.  4, 

2  Acts  X.  40,  41  (R.V.),  "Him  God  raised  up  from  the  dead  and  gave 
Him  to  be  made  manifest  not  to  all  the  people,  but  unto  witnesses  that  were 
chosen  before  of  God,  even  unto  us  who  did  eat  and  drink  with  Him  after  He 
rose  from  the  dead."  Even  those  who  are  most  sceptical  of  the  historicity  of 
the  first  half  of  Acts,  will  admit  that  such  a  statement  of  the  restriction  of  the 


154  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

vouchsafed  only  to  believers.  They  were  not  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Gospel,  but  its  seal  and  crown.  They  were 
the  interpretation  of  the  past,  and  could  convey  no 
proper  meaning  to  any  but  those  who  had  in  some 
measure  received  the  revelation  given  in  the  ministry  of 
Jesus.  The  disciples,  from  their  previous  intercourse 
with  Him,  had  reached  the  belief  of  His  Messiahship. 
He  already  possessed  a  supreme  greatness  for  their  hearts. 
He  had  claimed  an  immediate  and  absolute  homage 
from  them :  He  had  searched  and  judged  them :  He 
had  declared  that  He  would  yet  judge  all  men.  These 
assumptions  of  an  unshared  authority  were  vindicated  in 
their  eyes  by  His  self- verifying  teaching,  above  all  by 
the  whole  impression  created  by  His  person  and  miracles, 
that  He  was  the  chosen  possessor  of  a  divine  holiness  and 
power.  "  They  trusted  that  it  was  He  who  should 
redeem   Israel."  ^ 

But  the  Crucifixion  came  and  severed  the  tie  that 
bound  them  to  Him  who  was  their  true  life.  It  made 
their  hope  a  mockery.  Their  love  for  Him  remained, 
but  it  was  turned  into  a  poignant  regret.  God  had 
forsaken  Him  ;  that  holy  soul  who  bore  so  many  marks 
of  the  deliverer.  The  reappearance  of  Christ  was  the 
restoration  of  this  lost  hope :  it  was  not  the  creation  of  a 
new  faith,  but  at  once  the  re-instatement  and  the  trans- 
figuration of  the  old  one.  It  was  credible  to  them,  just 
because  it  took  up  and  continued  the  broken  threads  of 
a  fellowship  which  contained  in  it  elements  that  spoke 
of  immortality,  though  it  was  for  the  moment  apparently 

area  of  testimony,  antagonistic  as  it  is  to  the  craving  for  external  proofs,  is 
literally  historical,  and  represents  the  consistent  teaching  of  the  Early 
Churcli. 

1  Luke  xxiv.  21. 


IV. J  Historical  to  the  Spiritual  Christ  155 

destroyed  by  one  terrible  fact.  While  the  resurrection 
was  wholly  unlooked  for  by  them,  yet,  when  it  had 
taken  place,  there  was  that  within  them  which  pro- 
claimed it  not  merely  probable,  but  necessary.  Without 
it,  their  divinest  experiences  in  the  past  would  have  been 
incomprehensible.  The  one  thought  which  underlay  all 
their  other  thoughts  regarding  Jesus  had  been  that  He 
was  personally  indispensable  to  them.  In  every  possible 
manner  He  had  fostered  this  conviction,  and  it  leapt  out 
to  recognise  its  fulfilment  when  He  reappeared  under 
conditions  which  assured  an  abiding  communion.^  Apart 
from  such  an  actual  manifestation,  attesting  both  the 
reality  of  His  return  and  its  transcendent  and  permanent 
character,  their  previous  sense  of  His  indispensableness 
would  either  have  been  finally  destroyed  by  His  death, 
or  would  have  expressed  itself  in  fitful  dreams.  It 
would  never  have  become  the  central  force  of  their 
being,  nor  given  birth  to  their  clear  apostolic  message 
and  confident  service. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  true,  as  Harnack  says,  that 
"  no  appearances  of  the  Lord  could  permanently  have 
convinced  them  of  His  life,  if  they  had  not  possessed  in 
their  hearts  the  impression  of  His  Person."  ^  Here  is 
the  paradox  of  the  resurrection.  It  came  as  a  surprise, 
yet  it  was  felt  to  be  a  divine  necessity.  Its  validity 
depended  on  two  correlated  factors  :  the  outward  event 
and    the    inward    susceptibility.      The  absence   of  either 

^  The  strangeness  of  His  risen  manifestations,  so  different  from  all  the 
current  conceptions  of  human  resurrection,  did  not  alienate  the  disciples,  for 
they  had  already  learned  to  trust  Him  even  when  He  most  contradicted  or 
surprised  their  ideas  ;  and  they  soon  saw  in  that  very  strangeness  the  witness 
of  a  higher  and  endless  intercourse. 

^  History  of  Dogjna,  vol.  i.  p.  %(i^  n. 


156  The  Transitio7i  fro7n  the  [Lcct. 

would    have    nullified   it.      Therefore  he   never  appeared 
either   to   His    opponents   or    to  the   Jews   generally,   in 
whom  the  latter  factor  was  absent.      His  resurrection  was 
not   a   sign,  in   the  sense  in   which  the    miracles  of  the 
ministry  were  signs,  of  supernatural   power.      When    He 
stayed  the  raging  fever,  He  simply  accomplished  by  a  word 
the  cure  which  might  have  been  slowly  wrought  out  by 
ordinary  processes.      When  He  gave  sight  to  the  blind 
or  raised  the  dead,  He  merely  restored  the  powers  of  the 
natural  life.      Consequently,  He  performed  these  miracles 
in   presence   of  the    multitude.      Their    reality  could   be 
easily    verified.      Common    observation    and    knowledge 
could  judge  of  them.      Physical  science  can  tell  whether 
a  man  who   is   dead   at   one   moment  has   returned    the 
next  to  a  normal  human    life.      But  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  was  not  such  a  return.     The  revelation  which  His 
risen    body   gave  of  the  spiritual  was   itself    necessarily 
half  spiritual.      There  is   indeed  no  reason  for  supposing 
that  it  was  impossible  for   Jesus   to  be  as  visible  to  the 
Pharisees  as  He  was   to  the  disciples  when   He  showed 
them  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  ate  before  them   of  the 
broiled  fish.^      But  His  appearance  to  unbelievers  would 
have    served    no    real    purpose.      They  would    probably 

^  The  literal  character  of  the  proof  which  Jesus  offers  to  Thomas  points 
distinctly  in  this  direction.  Westcott,  Revelation  of  the  Risen  Lord,  p.  ii, 
says  :  "  If  it  (the  resurrection)  was  a  foreshadowing  of  new  powers  of  human 
action,  of  a  new  mode  of  human  being,  then  without  a  corresponding  power 
of  spiritual  discernment  there  could  be  no  testimony  to  its  truth.  The  world 
could  not  see  Christ,  and  Christ  could  not — there  is  a  Divine  impt>ssibility — 
show  Himself  to  the  world."  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that 
even  if  the  world  could  have  visibly  recognised  the  identity  of  the  risen  with 
the  earthly  Jesus,  yet  it  could  have  had  no  perception  of  what  His  risen  life 
meant,  seeing  that  the  transformation  in  Ilim,  which  was  quite  as  real  and 
essential  as  the  identity,  required  spiritual  receptivity  for  the  discernment  of 
its  significance. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritjtal  Christ  157 

have  declared  it  phantasmal ;  and  even  if  they  had 
admitted  it  was  He,  it  would  have  revealed  nothing  to 
them,  because  they  had  no  spiritual  perception,  no  back- 
ground of  experience  to  interpret  it,  no  adequate  sense 
of  what  He  had  proved  Himself  to  be  as  the  anointed  of 
the  Father,  and  the  Lord  and  helper  of  souls. 

This  shows  us  the  true  place  which  the  resurrection 
occupies  in  Christian  evidences.  The  apologist  who 
seeks  to  refute  scepticism  by  setting  it  in  the  front  rank, 
by  demonstrating  it  as  "  the  most  certain  of  all  historical 
events,"  and  arguing  back  from  it  to  the  divinity  of  the 
mission  and  character  of  Jesus,  inverts  the  method  in 
which  the  revelation  was  historically  given.  He  tends 
inevitably  to  alter  the  true  character  of  the  resurrection 
by  treating  it  as  on  a  level  with  the  miracles  of  the 
ministry,  and  then  he  violates  the  example  of  the  Lord 
Himself  by  using  it  as  a  miracle  to  create  faith.  On 
every  ground  the  attempt  must  fail.  The  sceptic  can 
readily  show,  by  pointing  to  the  Christian  records  them- 
selves, that  it  was  no  miracle  in  the  usual  sense,  and  was 
not  open  to  the  ordinary  external  or  historical  tests. 
Though  a  fact,  it  was  different  from  all  other  facts,  in 
that  its  real  significance  lay  in  its  spiritual  content ;  and 
apart  from  that  content,  the  fact  remains  no  Christian 
fact  at  all.  It  is  a  mere  incident  in  ancient  history.  A 
man  will  not  be  able  to  accept  this  most  mysterious  of 
all  supernatural  manifestations,  if  he  has  not  first  been 
led  up,  as  the  disciples  were,  to  find  the  supernatural  in 
the  life  and  person  of  Jesus ;  to  find  it,  that  is,  in  a  form 
in  which  it  can  be  verified  by  human  experience.^ 

^  The  miracle  of  Christ's  hoHncss  is  directly  verifiable  by  us,  because  the 
various  forms  of  His  self-manifestation  recorded  in  the  Gospels  irresistibly 


158  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

Until  we  have  received  the  impression  from  the 
Gospels  of  Christ's  moral  supremacy,  of  the  unshared 
relation  to  the  Father  to  which  His  inmost  conscious- 
ness testified,  and  of  the  correspondence  between  His 
unique  personal  experience  and  His  unique  claim  to  be 
the  mediator  of  a  new  life  of  sonship  to  others,  the 
resurrection  will  seem  but  an  idle  tale.  Now  such  an 
impression  is  not  simply  a  stamp  made  upon  us  from 
without ;  it  is  a  growing  recognition  on  our  part  of  what 
He  truly  was,  and  of  what  we  are  before  God.  Contact 
with  Jesus  as  we  see  Him  in  the  records  creates  for  us 
a  new  moral  atmosphere,  and  increasing  capacity  of 
spiritual  discernment,  which  reveals  Him  to  us,  because 
it  reveals  in  us  the  needs  which  He  alone  can  supply. 
It  forces  us  to  face  the  dark  problem  of  human  sin, 
hitherto  unrealised  but  now  felt  in  its  pressure,  and  thus 
to  discover  that  just  such  a  One  as  He  provides  the 
solution.  Only  to  those  who  have  passed  through  this 
experience  and  been  inwardly  impelled  to  assume  this 
attitude  towards  Him  is  the  resurrection  truly  credible. 
It  fits  in,  like  the  half  of  the  Roman  tessera^  to  what  they 
are  already  assured  of.  It  makes  complete  what  would 
otherwise  be  a  revelation  inexplicably  arrested. 

The  resurrection  thus  constitutes  the  great  point  of 
transition  in  the  Christian  faith,  at  which  He  who 
appeared  as  a  single  figure  in  history  is  recognised  as 
in  reality  above  historical  limitations,  the  abiding  Lord 
and  life  of  souls.      As  it  leads   inevitably  to  the  doctrine 

imply  it  (see  Lecture  I.).  It  is  not  an  inference  from  His  other  miracles  ;  it 
is  the  basis  on  which  faith  in  them  rests  ;  and  it  alone  gives  reality  and  intel- 
ligibility to  the  exceptional  miracle  of  the  resurrection,  with  its  dual  character. 
If  it  is  denied,  the  rest  become  meaningless.  It  then  matters  little  what  we 
believe  about  them. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritttal  Clmst  159 

of  Christ's  transcendent  Sonship,  the  Ritschlian  school, 
to  whom  all  religious  conceptions  are  but  "judgments  of 
value,"  naturally  deny  or  disregard  it.  For  them  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ  closes  with  the  Cross.  How 
then  are  we  to  think  of  Jesus  and  of  the  salvation  He 
brings,  when  the  resurrection  is  eliminated  ?  In  some 
respects  the  best  representative  of  this  view  is  Professor 
Herrmann,  who,  by  his  religious  insight  and  his  intensity 
of  conviction,  has  perhaps  done  more  than  any  other  to 
commend  it  as  practically  helpful.  God,  he  says,^ 
makes  Himself  known  to  us  through  a  fact.  Our 
certainty  of  Him  has  its  root  in  this,  that  in  the  realm 
of  human  history  we  encounter  the  man  Jesus  as  an 
undoubted  reality.  His  incomparable  moral  strength 
and  adequacy  to  His  loftiest  ideal,  His  confidence  that 
He  could  uplift  men  to  enjoy  the  highest  good  in  a  life 
of  utter  submission  to  God,  are  borne  home  to  us  with 
irresistible  force.  The  irremovable  persuasion  of  His 
historical  reality  does  not  imply  the  acceptance  of  the 
Gospel  story  as  literally  accurate.  We  start  from  the 
records,  but  the  power  of  His  personality  over  us  is  quite 
independent  of  the  correctness  of  the  details.  Help  lies 
for  us,  not  in  what  we  make  of  the  story,  but  in  what 
the  contents  of  the  story  make  of  us.  We  receive  the 
impress  of  His  "  inner  life,"  as  it  is  portrayed  by  those 
who  were  lifted  by  it  into  communion  with  God,  and 
interpreted  for  us  by  the  living  Church  around  us. 
When  we  have  found  this  inner  life  through  the  media- 
tion of  others,  we  become  free  even  of  their  mediation 
by  the  significance  which  that  life  has  for  our  own  expe- 
rience,  and    we   ask    no    more    questions    regarding   the 

*  Herrmann,  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God. 


i6o  TJic  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

trustworthiness  of  the  EvangeHsts.^  In  Jesus  we  cannot 
but  see  a  Power  greater  than  all  things,  and  we  are 
assured  that  He  must  succeed  though  all  the  world  be 
against  Him.  The  more  keenly  we  feel  our  own  short- 
coming, the  more  do  we  become  alive  to  the  strength  of 
His  character,  and  recognise  that  nothing  but  the  pre- 
sence of  God  can  account  for  it.  The  personal  attitude 
of  friendship  which  Jesus  takes  to  sinful  men  certifies  to 
us  that  His  God  is  our  God,  and  that  God  enters  into  such 
communion  with  us,  that  He  thereby  forgives  our  sins. 
Hence,  while  Jesus  compels  us  to  realise  as  never  before 
the  self-contradiction  of  our  being,  He  is  at  the  same 
time  the  "  sure  sign  "  that  good  is  not  essentially  foreign 
to  our  nature.2  By  our  conviction  that  in  Him  God 
communes  with  us  we  are  placed  inwardly  in  a  position 
to  overcome  the  antagonism  between  our  natural  life 
and  the  law  of  duty,  and  are  conscious  that  we  stand  in 
and  belong  to  a  historical  movement  in  which  the  good 
wields  ever  greater  sway.  This  communion  with  God 
includes  the  experience  of  moral  deliverance ;  and  it 
gives  such  satisfaction  to  our  spiritual  need  that  it 
becomes  to  us  the  clearest  of  certainties.  But  though 
our  only  real  knowledge  of  Christ  is  as  He  is  seen  in 
His  historical  appearance,  yet  "  we  cannot  think  of  His 
personal  life  as  something  that  could  ever  be  given  over 
to  annihilation."  ^  The  same  faith  that  sees  that  God  is 
present  to  us  in  Him  must  also  grasp  the  thought  that 
Jesus  lives  now.  It  is  convinced  that  the  exalted  Lord 
knows  how  near  we  have  come  to  Him,  or  how  far  we 
are  from  Him,  and   that  He  is  taking  part  in  our  battles 

^  Herrmann,  Conimimion  of  the  Christian  with  God^  pp.  6i,  62. 
2  Ibid.  p.  Si.  3  Jbid,  p.  222. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  spiritual  Christ  i6i 

with  all  His  human  sympathy  and  power.  But  this  is 
only  an  affirmation  of  the  religious  experience.  We  hold 
no  communion  with  the  exalted  Christ.  We  are  simply 
compelled  to  think  of  Him  as  living  and  ruling,  because 
such  a  thought  is  the  necessary  outcome  and  completion 
of  our  faith  in  God,  who  touches  and  redeems  us  in  the 
historical  Jesus. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  whether  Professor 
Herrmann  gives  an  adequate  account  of  the  work  of 
Christ  as  our  Redeemer.  Unquestionably,  on  his  theory, 
sin  is  not  that  desperate  and  dissolvent  reality  in  God's 
world,  requiring  a  supreme  mysterious  sacrifice  for  its 
removal,  which  it  consistently  is  with  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament.  Nor  does  he  connect  our  deliverance 
from  it,  as  they  do,  with  the  death  more  than  with  the 
life  of  Jesus.  Leaving  this  aside  as  a  subject  which 
belongs  to  a  subsequent  lecture,^  Herrmann  is  certainly 
right  in  maintaining  that  the  idea  which  we  have  of 
Christ's  person  depends  on  the  spiritual  impression  which 
He  makes  upon  us.  But  though  his  analysis  of  that 
impression  has  much  beauty  and  truth  about  it,  the  first 
thing  that  occurs  to  one  is  its  complete  divergence  from 
the  apostolic  view. 

The  inner  life  of  Jesus  through  which  we  feel  our- 
selves in  contact  with  God  is,  says  Herrmann,  His  per- 
sonality as  manifested  in  His  earthly  ministry.  It  is 
there,  and  there  alone,  that  we  gain  the  conviction  of 
His  supremacy,  and  the  guarantee  that  God  is  giving  us 
the  victory  over  all  forces,  without  or  within,  that  are 
alien  to  our  spiritual  good.  But  this  is  not  the  way  in 
which  Christ's  Church  came  into  existence.      If  anything 

^  See  Lecture  VI. 
II 


1 62  The  Tra7isitio7i  from  the  [Lect. 

is  clear,  it  is  that  the   first  disciples  did   not  attain  their 
sense  of  Christ's  dominance,  as  the   Head   of  a   divine 
kingdom,  merely  from  the  witness  of  His  earthly  presence 
and  work.    Deeply  as  He  had  stamped  Himself  upon  them, 
the  disastrous  close  of  His  career  would  have  paralysed 
whatever  confidence  they  had  in  His  triumph,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  indisputable  proof  of  His  risen  appearances. 
Whatever  judgment  be  passed  on  the  genuineness  of  the 
words  ascribed  to  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  "  Being 
therefore   by  the  right    hand   of   God   exalted,  He  hath 
poured  forth  this  which  ye  see  and  hear,"  ^  they  represent 
the  abiding  consciousness  of  the  apostolic  Church.      So 
far  as  the  apostles  saw  in    His  earthly  person  the  sure 
sign  of  His  mastery  over  all  that  impaired  the  soul's  life, 
it  was  because  in  the  light  of  His  resurrection   they  dis- 
covered a  significance  in  the  past  which  of  itself  it  could 
never  have  yielded.       It    is   quite    true    that    this    con- 
ception of  the  risen  Christ  drew  its  content  from  their 
knowledge  of  what   He  had   been    as  a   man ;  yet   even 
the    content     had     undergone    a    transformation.       The 
supremacy  which  had  been  restricted  by  earthly  condi- 
tions was   liberated ;  and    it  was   through   the   liberated 
and    dominant    Lord    that    God    held    real    communion 
with  them. 

This  applies  to  us  to-day  not  less  than  to  the  first 
disciples.  Herrmann  insists,  with  almost  needless  reitera- 
tion, that  what  makes  us  Christians,  what  emancipates 
us  from  the  pressure  of  sin  and  raises  us  into  an  assured 
fellowship  with  God,  is  the  inner  life  of  Jesus,  which, 
breaking  through  the  veils  of  the  record,  attests  its  reality 
to  us  as  an  actual   power  in  our  world.      But  what  is  our 

Acts  ii.  33. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritual  Christ  163 

conception  of  this  inner  life?  It  certainly  is  not  only 
that  Jesus  remained  ever  in  that  state  of  soul  which  we 
count  blessed,  and  that  He  retained  this  divine  peace  in 
presence  of  the  awful  death  which  befell  Him ;  but  that, 
as  His  life  stood  apart  from  ours,  so  death  also  had  not 
the  same  meaning  for  Him  as  for  us,  and  that  His  victory 
over  it  was  not,  as  in  our  case,  a  deferred  hope,  but  an 
immediate  reality.  It  is  nothing  to  the  purpose  to  say 
that  His  risen  appearances  belong  to  a  bygone  time,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  directly  verified  by  us.  This  is  no 
more  true  of  them  than  of  the  incidents  of  His  ministry. 
His  whole  earthly  manifestation  lies  in  that  sense  in  the 
past.  For  the  knowledge  of  it  we  are  wholly  indebted, 
in  the  first  place,  to  those  who  witnessed  it,  and  who  had 
the  spiritual  perception  to  recognise  it.^  But  if,  as  Herr- 
mann says,  //^^/>  representation  is  but  the  means  of  leading 
us  into  direct  contact  with  the  reality  of  His  personality, 
then  that  personality  verifies  itself  to  us  as  truly  in  the 
picture  they  give  of  His  triumph  over  death  as  of  His 
triumph  over  the  evils  of  life.  The  former  triumph  is 
not  a  mere  inference  which  we  draw  from  the  latter. 
Both  come  to  us,  in  their  representation,  as  facts  to  which 
they  bear  testimony.  Neither  in  the  one  case  nor  in  the 
other  does  the  truthfulness  of  the  fact  depend  on  the 
accuracy  of  the  details.  Just  as,  despite  all  the  parti- 
cular divergences  in  the  accounts  of  the  ministry,  we  feel 
ourselves  in  the  presence  of  One  who  actually  overcame 
the  world,  so  despite  the  divergences  or  contradictions  ^ 
in   the   story  of  the    resurrection,  we   are   compelled  to 

^  Coinmiinion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  90.  "We  find  the  Person 
of  Jesus  only  in  the  preaching  of  disciples  who  believed  in  Him." 

^  See  International  Critical  Commentary  on  St,  Mark,  by  E.  P.  Gould, 
p.  308,  and  on  St.  Luke,  by  Plummer,  p.  546. 


164  The  Transition  from  the  [Lect. 

acknowledge  the  reality  of  His  risen  power.  The  im- 
pression of  it  is  irresistibly  borne  in  upon  us  from  the 
recorded  effects  in  the  experience  of  the  disciples.  And 
all  the  more  is  this  so,  that  the  Christophanies,  as  has 
been  shown,  contain  just  those  contrasts  which  inherently 
belong  to  a  revelation  in  humanity  of  a  higher  mode  of 
existence.^ 

If,  on  the  abstract  ground  of  the  incredibility  of 
physical  miracle,  Herrmann  is  entitled  to  set  aside  the 
resurrection,  with  all  that  it  involves  of  an  actually 
revealed  immortality  and  an  assured  hope,  then  what 
answer  can  he  offer  to  the  agnostics  who  say  that  tJiei7' 
intellectual  presuppositions  make  the  miracle  of  Christ's 
unique  character  incredible  to  them,  and  that  the  possi- 
bility of  His  spiritual  victory  is  rigorously  ruled  out  by 
the  essential  laws  of  human  development?  What  Herr- 
mann calls  the  self-attesting  power  of  the  inner  life  of 
Jesus  is  to  them  the  product  of  mingled  emotion  and 
imagination.  When  he  replies  that  not  every  one  can 
see  the  personal  life  of  Jesus,  and  that  we  see  it  only 
when  it  pleases  God  to  reveal  His  Son  in  us,^  this  very 
answer  is  fatal  to  his  own  position.  For  if  the  witness 
of  Jesus  to  the  receptive  soul  warrants  it  in  disregarding 
abstract  probability,  and  affirming  His  moral  nature  as  a 
reality  in  history  transcending  the  human  limitations 
that  prevail  everywhere  else,  then  abstract  probability 
cannot  be  interposed  as  an  objection  to  the  truth  of  that 
witness  in  any  sphere. 

It  is  strange  that  Herrmann,  who  perpetually  contends 

^  Sec  Note  22,  p.  414,   *'  Harnack  and  Martincau  on  the  Significance  of 
the  Christophanies  for  subsequent  ages." 

^  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  6S. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritttal  Christ  165 

that  we  cannot  know  God  as  our  God  through  any- 
teaching,  but  only  through  a  fact,  should  yet  hold  that 
belief  in  a  living  Lord  who  makes  our  affairs  His  own, 
and  to  whom  we  belong  as  members  of  the  body  to  the 
Head,  is  not  based  on  any  verifiable  fact,  but  is  only  an 
inference  from  a  fact.  Surely  if  this  belief  alone  opens 
up  in  us,  as  he  says,  "  a  channel  for  all  the  true  power 
of  redemption,"  it  ought  to  be  guaranteed  in  the  same 
sphere  of  actuality  as  the  moral  victory  of  Jesus.  Is  it 
not  a  gross  inconsistency  to  say  that  God  could  not 
be  truly  known  by  us  unless  through  the  reality  of 
Christ's  perfect  Sonship,  and  yet  that  we  are  left  to  a 
mere  inference  of  our  own,  with  no  real  occurrence  in 
history  to  establish  it,  regarding  both  Christ's  triumph 
over  death  and  our  immortality  in  Him  ?  The  Church 
from  the  first  has  felt  by  a  sure  instinct  that,  if  His 
sinlessness  is  a  fact,  His  risen  life  is  no  less  a  fact, 
recognised  indeed  to  be  so  only  from  its  relation  to  the 
other,  yet  not  merely  ideally  inferred  from  it,  but  forming 
with  it  an  integral  part  of  the  same  objective  divine  mani- 
festation in  humanity ;  that  the  impression  upon  us  of 
Christ's  personality  which  declares  the  sinlessness  includes 
the  resurrection,  and  that  the  disbelief  of  the  latter  leads 
by  no  uncertain  path  to  the  denial  of  the  former. 

According  to  Herrmann,  the  personal  life  of  Jesus 
can  be  grasped  as  a  real  fact  in  history  by  a  man  who 
has  no  faith,  and  the  invisible  God  so  uses  this  fact 
to  make  such  men  certain  of  Himself  that  we  can  say 
He  communes  with  us.  Thus  by  an  act  of  self-revela- 
tion God  reaches  down  into  the  realm  of  our  earthly 
experience.^     But,  he   adds,  we  cannot  say  this   of  the 

1  P.  224. 


1 66  The  Transition  front  the  [Lect. 

exalted  Christ.  He  is  still  hidden  from  us  ;  and  when 
we  declare  that  Christ  lives  in  us,  we  are  only  expressing 
our  faith  in  our  redemption  through  Him.  Now,  un- 
doubtedly, it  is  through  the  historical  Jesus  that  faith 
is  created  ;  but  though  the  records  of  the  Gospels  lie 
open  to  all,  yet,  as  Herrmann  admits,^  to  realise  the  inner 
life  of  Jesus  as  a  veritable  attestation  of  the  presence  of 
a  redeeming  God  involves  a  special  experience  wrought 
by  the  Spirit.  But  where  anyone  has  attained  this 
insight,  he  perceives  that  the  victory  of  the  risen  Christ 
belongs  to  the  same  spiritual  order  as  a  real  fact  in 
history,  and  it  is  through  that  fact  of  the  living  Christ 
that  his  whole  thought  of  God  is  henceforth  determined. 
All  that  Herrmann  says  against  the  false  mysticism 
that  regards  Christ  as  simply  the  indispensable  means  of 
reaching  God,  and  when  it  reaches  Him  leaves  Christ 
behind,  is  thoroughly  true  to  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness ;  but  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  Christian  docs 
leave  the  Christ  of  the  earthly  life  behind,  and  grasps 
Him  as  a  present  reality,  dominant  now  as  He  never  was 
then,  and  through  whom  the  love  of  the  Father  descends 
into  his  heart  and  possesses  it.  By  no  analysis  is  he 
able  to  distinguish  his  communion  with  the  Father  from 
his  communion  with  Christ.  They  are  blended  as  con- 
sciously real  in  one  indivisible  experience.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  this  experience  does  not  spring  from  the 
negative  conviction  that  God  "  would  not  suffer  the  Jesus 
of  the  Gospels  to  be  annihilated." 

What  self-consistency  can  be  found  in  a  theory 
which  assures  us  that  we  must  think  of  the  exalted 
Christ  as  taking  part  in   our  battles  with  all  His  human 

1  P.  6S. 


IV.]  Historical  to  the  Spiritual  Christ  167 

sympathy  and  power,  and  yet  tells  us  that  in  no  single 
point  can  we  verify  His  co-operation  ?  The  truth  is,  the 
co-operation  has  no  reality ;  it  exists  only  in  our  con- 
ception of  Him,  and  it  is  no  marvel  if  a  non-existent 
co-operation  is  not  verifiable.  We  must  indeed  believe, 
we  are  told,  that  Jesus  is  now  alive,  and  because  He  is 
Jesus  He  must  sympathise  with  us.  But  how  this 
thought,  which  is  a  subjective  affirmation,  gives  the 
personal  life  of  Jesus  "  free  course  in  us,"  except  as 
Aberglaube,  may  remain  a  question.  It  is  but  the  ideal 
projection  into  a  higher  world  of  the  capacities  of  His 
human  life.  Herrmann  continually  employs  phrases  re- 
garding Jesus  which  cannot  but  create  an  illegitimate 
impression.  When  he  speaks  of  the  inner  life  of  Jesus 
"  as  a  present  fact  in  our  own  life,"  ^  of  the  "  essence 
of  God  as  nothing  but  this  inner  life  of  Jesus,"  ^  of  "  God 
and  Christ  as  one  in  the  Christian's  own  experience,"^ 
and  of  the  recognition  of  the  One  as  including  the  Other, 
he  conveys  suggestions  of  the  transcendence  of  Christ's 
person  which  his  entire  theory  repudiates.  He  talks  of 
touching  Him  as  "the  living  One,"*  yet  it  is  only  in 
the  sense  in  which  any  personality  must  be  a  "  living " 
power  to   us  before  we  can  be  said  to  know  it. 

It  is  time  to  protest  against  this  abuse  of  language, 
which  ascribes  to  a  theory  fatal  to  the  historic  faith 
the  intimate  and  continuous  fellowship  with  Christ  which 
that  faith  alone  makes  possible.  Sometimes  the  con- 
tradictions are  such  that  one  is  puzzled  to  say  whether 
they  spring  from  an  eclecticism  which  has  no  rational 
coherence,   or    from    mere    confusion    of   thought.^     He 

^  P.  78.  -  P.  133.  '  P.  139.  '  P.  62. 

°  See  Note  23,  p.  415,  on  "Herrmann's  Conception  of  the  Exalted  Christ." 


1 68    From  Historical  to  Spiritual  Christ    [Lect.  iv. 

rightly  emphasises  the  fact  that  we  need  the  communion 
of  Christians  in  order  that,  from  the  picture  of  Jesus 
which  His  Brotherhood  has  preserved,  there  may  shine 
forth  that  inner  life  which  is  the  heart  of  it.  It  is 
within  the  Christian  Church  that  Herrmann  has  himself 
received  his  inspiration ;  but  had  the  "  inner  life "  of 
Jesus  contained  no  other  elements  than  he  ascribes  to 
it,  there  had  been  no  Church  to  perpetuate  and  expound 
it.  The  enthusiasm  with  which  he  unfolds  his  con- 
ception, and  the  attaching  power  which  it  has  had  for 
many  of  his  readers,  are  the  survival  of  a  faith  which 
strikes  its  roots  into  ultimate  realities  that  he  ignores. 
The  result  is  a  half-way  house,  which,  like  ancient 
Arianism,  affords  no  abiding  resting-place  to  spiritual 
intelligence.  What  has  been  said  in  another  connection 
may  be  applied  to  his  view  of  Christ,  as  compared  with 
that  of  the  historic  Church :  "  It  is  a  weary  way  to  God, 
but  a  wearier  far  to  any  demi-god."  ^ 

^  R.  H.  Hutton,  Essay  Si  Literary  y  2nd  ed. ,  p.  79. 


LECTURE    V. 

THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST  AND  HIS  REVELATION 
OF  THE   GODHEAD. 


1G9 


SYNOPSIS. 

The  problem  of  Christ\s  Person  as  it  presented  itself  to  the  Apostles. 

Their yi/s^  conception  of  Him,  as  the  adequate  organ  of  God's  working  in  the 

redemptive  sphere. 
Their  later  view  simply  a  realisation  of  what  this  involved. 
The  Pauline  doctrine  in  Colossians  :  anticipated  in  Corinthians. 
The  Prologue  to  St.  John's  Gospel :  his  use  of  the  term  Logos. 
The  Christology  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  makes  the  universe  intelligible  by 

revealing  its  unifying  principle. 
Man,  as  a  centre  of  free  spiritual  activity,  expresses  and  reproduces  the  Son. 
Therefore  the  Logos  can  become  personally  Incarnate  in  humanity. 

Was  the  Incarnation  a  necessity  apart  from  Sin  ? 

Examination  of  the  arguments  for  the  affirmative  view. 

In  what  light  the  Christological  decisions  of  the  Church  Councils  are  to  be 

understood. 
Defect  of  the  Chalcedon  Formula. 
Kenotic  Christology. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit :  how  it  arose. 

In  the  Pauline  Epistles  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  Spirit  is  the  alter  ego  of 

Christ :  yet  only  within  limits. 
Knowledge  of  His  personality  only  reached  through  the  j^crsonality  of  the 

Son. 

The  Trinity  a  Christian,  not  a  Jewish,  conception. 
The  adumbrations  of  it  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Speculative  renderings  of  it. 
The  Trinity  essentially  a  historical  revelation. 


170 


LECTURE    V. 

The  Person  of  Christ  and  His  Revelation  of 

THE  Godhead. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  plausibility  with  which  Herrmann 
seeks  to  arrest  any  inquiry  concerning  the  person  of 
Christ  arises  from  the  truncated  view  he  gives  of  the 
impression  produced  upon  us  by  Christ,  by  limiting  our 
knowledge  of  Him  to  what  pertained  only  to  His  human 
life,  closing  with  the  Crucifixion.  Even  on  this  basis, 
the  plausibility  is  purely  deceptive.  He  who  attributes 
to  Jesus  the  unique  pre-eminence  which  the  Ritschlians 
assign  to  Him,  cannot  at  the  same  time  treat  Him  as 
requiring  no  more  explanation  than  any  other  historical 
figure,  and  must  either  rise  to  such  a  conception  as  will 
vindicate  the  impression,  or  sooner  or  later  discard  the 
impression  itself  as  subjective  and  illusory. 

But  the  problem  that  actually  presents  itself  is  quite 
different.  For  the  self-attesting  impression  of  Christ's 
life  to  the  Christian  soul  is  that  of  a  personality  which  is 
unique  not  only  in  its  spiritual  quality,  but  also  in  its 
persistence  through  death  and  over  it ;  which  verified 
under  temporal  forms  its  entrance  into  the  spiritual 
world  as  the  living  Lord  of  humanity.  If  it  were 
possible,  which  in  reality  it  is  not,  to  abstain  from  all 
question    as   to    the    nature    of    One    in    whose    earthly 

171 


172  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

appearance  God  gives  us  the  incontestable  assurance 
of  His  redeeming  purpose  and  power,  it  is  totally  im- 
possible in  the  case  of  One  whom  we  cannot  but  conceive 
as  still  the  sole  mediator  of  the  divine  life  to  men,  and 
mediator  now  in  a  full  and  supreme  sense  as  He  was 
not  upon  earth.  Yet  this  was  precisely  the  conviction 
which  was  wrought  into  the  being  of  the  apostles.  The 
new  spiritual  life  which  streamed  down  upon  them 
shortly  after  His  ascension  was  indeed  a  gift  from  the 
Father,  but  none  the  less  was  it  for  them  mediated  by 
Christ  as  the  exalted  Son  of  Man.  Their  thoughts 
centred  in  Him  as  the  one  channel  of  the  Father's  love. 
All  the  riches  of  God  were  summed  up  in  Him  for 
humanity.^ 

But  it  would  be  absurd  to  expect  that  they  were 
able  at  once  to  realise  all  that  was  involved  in  this  new 
attitude  towards  Christ  which  they  felt  constrained  to 
take.  They  kept  close  to  the  historic  facts  out  of  which 
their  faith  in  Him  grew.  He  was  the  Servant  of  God, 
the  holy  and  righteous  One,  whom  God  for  His  fidelity 
to  His  mission  as  Messiah  had  raised  to  His  own  right 
hand  and  made  to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Saviour."  The 
addresses  of  Peter  in  Acts  bear  the  stamp  of  verisimili- 
tude, just  because  they  set  forth  the  unequalled  supremacy 
of  Christ  in  terms  of  direct  and  realistic  simplicity. 
They  are  an  attempt  to  express  a  new  and  overwhelming 
fact    of   experience,   when    reflection    upon    it    has    only 

^  See  Note  24,  p.  416,  "The  Universalism  of  Christ." 

2  Acts  iii.  13,  14,  26;  V.  30,  31 ;  x.  38.  Cf.  iv.  27,  30.  Tlic  word  irah  so 
frequently  appHed  to  Jesus  in  these  passages  does  not  signify  "child,"  with 
any  transcendent  reference;  but  simply  "servant,"  or,  in  this  connection, 
"the  supreme  Servant"  of  God,  i.e.  The  Messiah.  See  Grimm's  Lexicon^ 
edited  by  Thayer. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  173 

begun  to  work.  Two  influences  entered  to  determine 
the  earliest  form  of  the  apostles'  thought.  The  first  was, 
that  this  Jesus,  who  was  now  the  Lord  of  all,  had 
recently  lived  with  them  in  all  the  intimacy  of  human 
companionship.  To  them  He  was  emphatically  a  man 
approved  of  God,  who  went  about  doing  good.  That 
earthly  life,  which  formed  the  basis  of  all  they  knew 
or  believed  of  Him,  effectually  restrained  them  from  any 
abstract  or  speculative  statements.  And,  secondly,  they 
construed  His  work  of  redemption  under  the  forms  of 
Messiahship.  But  however  varied  were  the  qualities 
belonging  to  the  Messiah  of  the  Jewish  hope,  he  himself 
was  not  divine,  but  the  delegate  of  God.^  The  prophetic 
picture  of  him  dealt  not  with  his  person,  but  with  the 
functions  appointed  to  him.  Attention  was  wholly 
concentrated  on  his  earthly  appearance,  and  on  all 
that  he  continued  to  be  to  his  people  in  consequence 
of  that. 

In  declaring,  therefore,  that  Jesus  was  the  Fulfiller 
of  the  promises  made  to  the  fathers,  the  apostles  felt 
at  first  no  necessity  either  for  themselves  or  for  their 
hearers  to  form  any  conception  regarding  Christ  previous 
to  His  manifestation.  They  were  not  primarily  con- 
cerned with  a  theory  of  the  universe,  but  with  the 
problem  of  human  sin  and  the  revelation  of  God's 
pardoning  and  quickening  grace.  It  was  the  conscious- 
ness of  God,  not  as  Creator  but  as  Saviour,  that  had 
been  awaked  in  them  by  the  Coming  of  Christ.  That 
God  was  the  Maker  and  Upholder  of  all  things,  that 
every  good  gift  was  from  Him,  that  their  bodies  and 
spirits    were   His    and    to    be    used    for    His   glory,  were 

^  See  ante^  pp.  69-73. 


174  ^^^  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

already  deep  convictions  of  their  Jewish  faith.  The 
specifically  Christian  message  was  the  good  news  of 
spiritual  deliverance  and  of  the  new  fellowship  with 
God  which  Christ  mediated.  They  did  not  set  them- 
selves to  unfold  the  whole  doctrine  of  God.  They 
presupposed  much  that  was  contained  in  the  earlier 
revelation,  though  incidentally  from  the  standpoint  of 
their  fuller  knowledge  of  Him  it  was  enlarged  and 
deepened.  But  essentially  it  was  the  redemptive  aspect 
under  which  they  regarded  Him.  All  the  attributes 
of  God  were  viewed  in  this  light ;  and  the  risen  Christ 
was  to  them  the  adequate  organ  for  the  expression  of 
all  God's  attributes  in  the  redemptive  sphere.^ 

But  this  position  could  not  be  final.  It  might  suffice 
for  minds  purely  practical  and  unspeculative ;  but  the 
more  the  Church  realised  through  its  own  deepening 
experience  the  supreme  place  and  function  of  the  exalted 

^  The  Christology  of  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter,  which  was  written 
probably  about  the  year  64  A.D.,  has  much  of  the  same  simple  and  realistic 
character  that  marks  the  Petrine  discourses  in  Acts.  Many  have  questioned 
{vid.  Beyschlag,  N.T.  Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  391  ff.)  whether  the  Epistle  teaches 
the  pre-existence  of  Christ.  When  we  remember  that  Peter  had  now  lived 
through  more  than  thirty  years  of  Christian  experience,  and  that  lie  had  in 
the  interval  been  largely  influenced  by  the  teaching  of  Paul,  of  which  this 
First  Epistle  gives  evidence  (cf.  Salmon,  Introd.  to  the  N.  T.,  chap.  xxii. ),  it 
is  hardly  doubtful  that  he  had  himself  reached  by  this  time  the  conviction  of 
Christ's  true  and  essential  Deity.  But  it  is  characteristic  of  his  cast  of 
thought,  that  in  the  Epistle  his  treatment  of  Christ's  person  remains  properly 
soteriological.  He  speaks  of  Ilim  as  "foreordained  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world,  but  manifest  in  these  last  times,"  and  declares  that  His  Spirit 
testified  in  the  prophets.  He  proclaims  Him  to  be  Lord  not  only  of  the 
spiritual  world,  but  of  the  material  as  related  to  the  spiritual  and  subserving 
it,  "angels  and  authorities  and  powers  being  made  subject  unto  Him."  In 
Peter's  view,  the  miracles  of  the  ministry  and  the  triumph  over  death  were 
the  symbols  in  Christ's  earthly  existence  of  a  mastery  now  complete  over  all 
created  things  for  the  purposes  of  human  salvation.  But  he  never  directly 
raises  the  question  whether  Christ  holds  any  other  relation  to  the  world  than 
that  of  Saviour. 


v.]  His  Revelatio7i  of  the  Godhead  175 

Christ,  the  more  needful  it  became  for  some  at  least 
to  address  themselves  to  the  problem  which  this  con- 
ception of  Him  forced  upon  them.  The  work  which 
He  carried  on  of  moral  deliverance  and  renewal  was 
seen  to  be  interwoven  with  the  whole  texture  of  human 
life.  It  implied  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  variety  and 
complexity  of  individual  characters,  and  the  capacity 
to  meet  their  needs.  But  the  redemptive  power  which 
had  this  penetrating  and  universal  bearing  could  not 
be  merely  superimposed  on  an  organic  world  which  was 
independent  of  it :  if  it  were  to  become  an  inherent 
part  of  it,  and  blend  with  its  inner  development,  it  must 
be  in  a  real  sense  there  already.  It  could  not  be 
external  to  the  formation  of  a  system  to  whose  con- 
summation it  was  indispensable.  He  who  was  central 
for  the  redemption  of  man  must  be  as  central  for  his 
creation.  If  He  were  to  satisfy  the  deepest  longings 
of  the  soul.  He  must  have  been  their  Inspirer.  Had 
they  arisen  without  Him,  He  had  never  been  able  to 
comprehend  and  fulfil  them. 

Not  only  so.  Man's  life  is  itself  an  integral  portion 
of  God's  world,  not  an  isolated  and  self-contained  unity, 
but  correlated  to  a  material  environment  which  in- 
fluences his  whole  spiritual  being.  Since,  in  one  aspect, 
he  is  the  highest  stage  of  a  long  process  of  evolution, 
the  same  personal  Power  whom  he  recognises  as  supreme 
in  his  own  life  he  cannot  but  regard  as  operative,  how- 
ever implicitly,  in  every  prior  stage.  The  more  we  feel 
God's  universe  to  be  a  single  whole,  the  more  we  per- 
ceive the  impossibility  that  the  supremacy  of  Christ  in 
the  loftiest  sphere  of  human  experience  can  be  arbitrary 
or   sectional.      It   must,  however  at  times  hidden,  have 


176  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

a    universal    reference.       It    must   have    its   root    in  the 
necessity  of  things. 

It  is  this  idea  to  which  Paul  gives  formal  expression 
in  Colossians.^  "  The  Son  of  the  Father's  love,  in  whom 
we  have  our  redemption,  is,"  he  says,  "  the  image  of  the 
invisible  God,  the  first-begotten  of  all  creation.  For  in 
Him  were  all  things  created,  in  the  heavens  and  upon  the 
earth,  things  visible  and  things  invisible  ;  all  things  have 
been  created  through  Him  and  unto  Him ;  and  He 
is  before  all  things,  and  in  Him  all  things  consist.  This 
is  He  who  is  the  Head  of  the  Body,  the  Church.  In 
both  spheres,  the  natural  and  the  spiritual.  He  has  the 
pre-eminence."  Nothing  could  be  more  emphatic.  Nor 
was  this  a  conception  of  Christ  which  came  to  Paul 
only  towards  the  close  of  his  life,  and  quite  at  variance 
with  the  teaching  of  the  Epistles  of  the  Judaistic  con- 
troversy.2  In  these  he  discusses  the  conditions  and 
method  of  salvation ;  shows  that  if  Christ  is  anything 
for  forgiveness  and  sanctification.  He  is  everything  ;  that 
the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Him  wholly  supplants 
the  old  law  of  ordinances ;  that  He  is  central  for  the 
race  as  for  the  individual  soul.  The  apostle  almost 
wholly  confines  himself  here  to  the  historical  point  of 
view,  but  he  assigns  to  Christ  in  history  divine  functions. 
He  was  too  keen  a  thinker  to  imagine  that  any  single 
function  of  the  divine  could  be  discharged  by  one 
who  was  unable  to  fulfil  all.  His  type  of  mind  was 
dominantly  systematic :  he  was  inevitably  driven  to  seek 
the  issues  of  his  thought,  to  find  some  unifying  principle 
which  would  make  the  truth  he  held  luminous.  The 
theology  which  speaks  of  Christ  having  merely  "  the  value 

*  Col.  i.  13-1S.  ^  I  and  2  Cor.,  Gal.,  and  Rom. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  lyy 

of  God  "  he  would  have  stamped  as  a  piece  of  hero- 
worship,  intolerable  alike  for  its  intellectual  inadequacy 
and  its  emotional  idolatry.  There  were,  perhaps  un- 
fortunately, no  Ritschlians  in  Corinth ;  but  in  the  letters 
addressed  to  that  Church  there  are  not  wanting  indica- 
tions how  he  would  have  dealt  with  the  subjective 
impressionism  to  which  they  would  reduce  his  historical 
Christology.  He  bases  his  appeal  for  liberality  on  the 
transcendence  of  Christ  and  His  immeasurable  self- 
impoverishment  for  our  sakes,  "  that  we  through  His 
poverty  might  be  rich."  ^  It  is  not  Christ's  sufferings, 
or  even  His  death,  but  His  very  existence  in  humanity, 
which  constitutes  for  Paul  the  final  proof  of  His  self- 
renunciation. 

In  another  passage  he  anticipates  almost  the  exact 
phraseology  of  Colossians.  When  referring  to  idol- 
worship,  he  says,  "  Though  there  be  that  are  called  gods 
.  .  .  yet  to  us  there  is  one  God,  the  Father,  of  whom 
are  all  things,  and  we  unto  Him  ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  through  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  through 
Him."  ^  The  idea  is  not  elaborated  as  in  the  late 
Epistle,  but  the  very  indirectness  with  which  it  is  in- 
troduced as  a  truth  acknowledged  and  beyond  challenge 
is  the  strongest  proof  of  the  permanent  and  ruling  place 
it  had  in  his  thought.^  These  allusions  rise  incidentally, 
but  with  perfect  naturalness  and  clearness,  when  he  is 
dealing  with  some  subsidiary  question  or  duty.  He  had 
no  cause  to  develop  them  at  length  in  the  Judaistic 
controversy.       The    doctrine    they    expressed    was     not 

1  2  Cor.  viii.  9.  ^  i  Cor.  viii.  5,  6. 

^  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  presents  a  curious  parallel  in  this  respect. 
The  author  introduces  (i.  2-3)  in  the  same  brief  and  almost  incidental  way,  as 
an  indubitable  truth,  the  cosmic  function  of  the  Son. 


178  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

directly  in  dispute.  But  it  was  in  dispute  among  the 
Colossians,  who,  with  their  Gnostic  speculations  and 
their  exaggerated  asceticism,  were  perverting  the  character 
of  Christ's  redemption  by  postulating  various  mediatorial 
agents  between  God  and  the  world.  Paul  declares  that 
there  are  no  such  agents,  that  Christ  is  the  sole  mediator 
of  the  Father's  purpose,  that  He  is  pre-eminent  in  the 
sphere  of  grace  because  He  is  pre-eminent  in  the  sphere 
of  nature,  and  that  the  denial  of  His  supremacy  in  the 
latter  necessarily  denudes  His  supremacy  in  the  former 
of  its  real  significance.  But  while  he  is  compelled  by 
circumstances  to  develop  in  Colossians  the  truth  of 
Christ's  cosmic  relation,  his  treatment  of  it  is  as  far 
as  possible  from  a  mere  abstract  argument.  There,  as 
in  Corinthians,  the  whole  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  re- 
newing and  emancipating  power  of  the  Gospel.  His 
eye  is  ever  on  the  soteriological  aspect  of  Christ's  person 
and  work ;  and  it  is  only  as  the  necessary  vindication 
of  that,  and  of  the  presuppositions  that  it  involves,  that 
he  dwells  at  all  on  the  transcendent  side. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  questionable  theorising 
as  to  the  slow  development  of  Paul's  view  of  Christianity. 
Because  the  earliest  group  of  his  letters  is  simple  and 
uncontroversial,  it  has  been  maintained  ^  that  what  he 
specifically  terms  "  my  Gospel,"  ^  as  expounded  in 
Romans,  was  only  apprehended  by  him  after  the  Epistles 
to  the  Thessalonians  were  written.  But  the  council 
of  Jerusalem,  where  Paul  appeared  as  the  champion  of 
Gentile  liberty  against  the  Judaising  section,  was  held 
before  he  wrote  to  the  Thessalonians,  or  even  had  visited 

^  Very  elaborately  by  A.  Sabaticr  in  Ihe  Apostle  raid. 
'  Rom.  ii.  16. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  179 

them.^  It  is  against  all  probability  that  one  of  his 
logical  acumen  and  insight  could  pass  through  such  a 
crisis  of  conflict  without  perceiving  the  vital  principle 
involved.  But  we  are  not  left  to  mere  inferences.  His 
dispute  with  Peter  at  Antioch,^  in  which  he  distinctly 
enunciated  his  "  Gospel,"  occurred  either  before  the 
Jerusalem  congress,  or  at  latest  immediately  after  it^ 
The  omission  from  his  first  two  letters  of  the  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith  was  due,  not  to  its  absence  from 
Paul's  own  thought,  but  to  the  fact  that  the  controversial 
exposition  of  it  was  not  called  for  by  the  state  of  the 
Thessalonian  Christians.  So,  also,  the  contrast  that  is 
visible  between  the  second  and  third  group  of  his 
Epistles  does  not  imply  that  the  intervening  three  or 
four  years  had  unfolded  to  him  a  cosmological  concep- 
tion of  Christ  previously  undreamt  of.  They  only 
brought  to  him  a  firmer  grasp  of  the  truth  he  already 
held,  and  a  deeper  perception  of  its  ultimate  meanings. 
The  vagrant  heresies  of  Colosse  were  the  occasion,  not 
of  revealing  to  him  the  transcendent  side  of  Christ's 
nature,  but  of  leading  him  to  express  and  develop  it. 

The  same  idea  of  Christ's  essential  relation  to  the 
universe  is  set  forth  by  John  in  his  Prologue,*  but  is  there 
worked  out  progressively,  and  with  greater  elaboration. 
The  Word  is  described,  not  merely  as  the  Agent  through 
whom  the  worlds  were   made,  but  as  the   Illuminator  of 


^  Cf.  Bruce,  St.  FaiiTs  Conception  of  Christianity^  pp.  lo,  ii. 

^  Gal.  ii.  1 1- 14. 

^  The  generally  accepted  view,  advocated  by  Lightfoot  {Comrn.  on 
Galatians,  in  loc),  regards  the  controversy  at  Antioch  as  slightly  subsequent 
to  the  Apostoli<:  Council  of  Acts  xv.  Professor  W.  M.  Ramsay  contends  veiy 
strongly  for  an  earlier  date.     See  his  St.  Paul  the  Traveller^  chap.  vii. 

""  John  i.  1-18. 


i8o  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

reason  and  conscience,  the  Light  that  Hghteth  every  man. 
The  pecuUarity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  being  not  only 
a  record  of  the  facts  of  Christ's  life,  but  the  interpretation 
of  them  to  which  the  apostle  had  been  led  after  pro- 
longed experience  and  reflection,  made  it  necessary  for 
me  to  deal  with  the  Johannine  doctrine  in  connection 
with  the  problem  of  the  historicity  of  the  Gospel.^  It 
is  only  needful  now  to  repeat  that  the  Logos  of  the 
Prologue  is  no  abstract  conception,  but  filled  with 
the  definite  content  of  the  historical  personality  of 
Jesus  which  John  afterwards  proceeds  to  depict.  The 
term  was  no  doubt  derived  originally  from  the  Judaeo- 
Alexandrine  school,^  but  the  significance  of  it  for  the 
apostle  is  not  to  be  determined  by  its  traditional  use, 
but  by  the  connection  in  which  he  sets  it.  His  long 
residence  in  Ephesus  naturally  familiarised  him  with  the 
Gnostic  theosophies  that  were  rife  in  Asia  Minor,  but  his 
employment  of  a  Hellenistic  phrase  is  no  proof  that  he 
used  it  in  a  Hellenistic  sense.  He  "  took  his  own  wherever 
he  found  it,"  and  seized  on  the  current  word  Logos  as 
best  expressing  for  that  age  in  succinct  shape  Christ's  real 
place  in  the  universe  as  demanded  by  the  facts  of  His 
self-revelation.  He  turned  it  to  his  own  purpose,  just  as 
Jesus  Himself  accepted  and  transformed  the  Jewish  title 
of  Messiah.  In  itself,  indeed,  it  is  intellectual  rather  than 
moral,  and  does  not  convey  the  thought  of  a  distinct  per- 


1  Vid.  Lecture  TI. 

-  **  There  are  reasons  apart  from  the  identity  of  the  name  for  supposing 
that  the  apostle  had  met  with  the  Alcxanchine  doctrine,  and  liad  been 
influenced  by  it.  And  there  is  a  great  difficulty  about  the  opposite  view,  viz. 
that  the  Logos-doctrine  in  S.  John  belongs  to  an  independent  development  in 
the  Palestinian  schools,  and  not  at  all  to  Alexandrine  Judaism.*' — T.  B.  Strong, 
Manual  of  Theology ^  p.  loi,  «. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  i8i 

sonality ;  nor  does  it  bear  any  direct  association  with  that 
humanity  of  Christ  which  is  yet  its  fullest  manifestation. 
But  this  is  to  treat  the  word  in  abstracto.  As  it  stands 
in  the  Prologue,  which  is  both  the  summation  and  the 
key  of  the  historical  portion  that  follows,  it  has  for  its 
determining  element  the  idea  of  sonship,  through  which 
it  imparts  a  moral  meaning  to  the  essential  nature  of  God 
as  revealed  in  every  sphere  of  creation.^ 

The  doctrine  of  Christ's  transcendence  is  sometimes 
dismissed  as  simply  a  theologoumenon  of  Paul  or  John, 
natural  in  their  circumstances  and  under  the  forms  of 
thought  with  which  they  worked,  but  not  at  all  binding 
on  us,  and  with  no  abiding  force  for  humanity.  If  by 
this  is  meant  that  the  ipse  dixit  even  of  an  apostle  is  not 
obligatory,  it  may  be  readily  admitted.  The  only  bind- 
ing thing  is  truth  itself;  and  the  compulsion  with  which 
it  arrests  us  comes  from  its  self-verifying  power.  Where 
this  inward  witness  is  wanting,  there  can  be  no  genuine 
belief  or  acceptance  of  any  doctrine.  No  teaching  of  the 
apostles,  any  more  than  any  utterance  of  the  prophets, 
is  "of  private  interpretation."  The  one  interpreter  of 
the  divine  is  the  Spirit  of  God  Himself,  and  it  is  only 
in  so  far  as  Paul's  thought  finds  an  inevitable  response 
in  the  mind  and  heart  that  it  possesses  a  permanent 
authority.      If  his   message   be   true,   it   is  not   his ;  it  is 

^  The  Logos  or  Reason  of  God  is  a  favourite  word  with  many  of  the  Fathers 
(cf.  Newman,  Avians  of  the  Fourth  Century,  p.  170),  who  argue  that  to  deny 
the  eternity  of  Christ  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  Ahiiighty  God  was  once  without 
intelHgerice  (aXoyos).  But  the  same  argument  is  equally  valid  for  the  eternal 
Sonship,  inasmuch  as  the  denial  of  the  eternity  of  the  Son  is  the  denial  of 
Fatherhood  as  God's  essential  character.  Fatherhood  and  Sonship  are  corre- 
lative facts  ;  "the  one  is  only  as  the  oAer  is."  (Fairbairn.  See  his  admir- 
able statement,  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  393.)  The  "eternal  '''eneration 
of  the  Son  "  is  involved  in  the  Christian  conception  of  God. 


1 82  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

given  him  by  the  same  illuminating  Power  that  gives  me 
the  capacity  to  receive  it.  The  whole  force  of  it  for 
teacher  and  recipient  alike  lies  in  the  Spirit,  who  is  the 
possession  of  both.  Christ's  cosmic  function  appears 
naturally  but  a  fantastic  speculation  to  those  who  see  in 
Jesus  only  one,  though  the  highest,  of  many  similar 
revelations  of  the  divine.  On  that  basis  it  is  fantastic, 
and  would  never  have  existed.  But  a  faith  such  as  we 
have  seen  to  be  common  to  the  first  disciples,  and  to 
be  warranted  by  the  facts  of  Christ's  unique  moral 
nature,  His  claims,  and  His 'manifestation  as  the  risen 
and  dominant  Lord,  not  simply  accepts  but  de- 
mands it  as  its  rational  ground  and  presupposition. 
There  was  a  stage  in  the  history  of  the  early  Church,  as 
the  Book  of  Acts  shows,  when  many  held  this  faith, 
while  unconscious  of  its  implications.  The  question  of 
the  transcendence  was  not  negated  ;  for  them  it  did 
not  exist.  But  with  the  advance  of  analytic  thought  it 
was  bound  to  arise ;  and,  when  once  raised,  the  believer 
recognises  in  the  cosmic  Christology  of  Paul  and  John 
the  imperativeness  of  a  true  revelation. 

For  it  renders  the  universe  intelligible,  by  revealing 
its  unifying  principle.  The  redeeming  work  of  Christ 
not  merely  presents  to  us  the  aspect  under  which  7ve 
must  think  of  God  as  related  to  us ;  it  is  the  veritable 
disclosure  of  the  inner  heart  and  life  of  God,  of  what  He 
is  in  Himself  and  in  every  phase  of  His  activit)'.  The 
operative  power  in  all  worlds  is  the  eternal  Son,  who  is 
the  object  of  the  Father's  love  and  the  organ  of  His 
love's  expression.  Creation  and  redemption  come  into 
line.  Redemption,  being  in  essence  a  recovery,  is  the 
luminous  centre  which   interprets   for   us   the   meaning  of 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  i8 


J 


creation  which  sin  has  obscured.  All  things  have  their 
being  from  the  outflow  of  God's  heart  through  the  Son 
of  His  love.  Sonship  is  the  ultimate  principle  that 
underlies  creation,  physical  as  well  as  moral.  The  mate- 
rial world  would  not  exist  if  it  had  not  its  final  cause 
and  explanation  in  the  spiritual.^  Sonship  is  the  secret 
of  its  beingj'^  just  as  the  fruit  is  the  secret  hidden  in  the 
seed ;  it  is  the  issue  to  which  it  is  blindly  working,  and 
the  vindication  of  its  existence.  Therefore  the  divine 
love  cannot  rest  in  its  creative  activity  through  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  the  inorganic  and  animal  spheres  till  it 
has  embodied  in  its  works  the  likeness  of  its  inner  cha- 
racter. God  is  essentially  and  of  Himself  perfect  love ; 
but  love  implies  both  a  giving  and  a  receiving — a  double 
personality ;  and  this  double  personality  God  includes  in 
Himself  as  Father  and  Son,  the  originative  and  the  depend- 
ent love.^  And  as  all  creation  is  in  its  final, purpose  but 
the  self-projection  of  the  divine,  or  the  realisation  without 
the  Godhead  of  that  sonship  which  eternally  exists  within^ 
it  can  only  find  its  goal  in  a  rational  and  spiritual  being, 
who  not  merely  receives  but  returns  love  in  a  conscious 
fellowship.  The  filial  will  in  us  is  not  simply  our  human 
response  to  the  divine ;  it  has  its  root  in  the  divine 
nature.*  Man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  because 
he  is  the  analogue  in  creation  of  the  uncreated  Son, 
whose  working  is  in  him  consummated.^      His   sonship  is 

^  See  ante,  p.  ill,  n. 

^  See  Note  25,  p.  422,  on  "  The  apparent  Antagonism  between  Nature  and 
the  Moral  Life— Sin  and  Death." 

3  See  Note  29,  p.  436. 

^  See  Note  26,  p.  432. 

^  In  speaking  of  INIan  as  the  crown  of  creation,  I  am  not  to  be  understood 
as  forgetful  of,  or  denying,  the  New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  existence  of 
angels.     But  angels  and  men  belong  to  the  same  order  of  spiritual  intelligence, 


184  The  Person  of  Clii'ist  and  [Lect. 

grounded  in  the  Filial  and  Recipient  Love  which  is 
eternally  in   God. 

It  is  this  fact  that  makes  the  Incarnation  possible. 
Though  all  created  things  have  their  ground  in  the  Son, 
yet  in  inanimate  nature  or  the  purely  animal  world  they 
do  not  express  His  character.  Man  does ;  because  he 
can  represent  and  reproduce  the  Son  as  a  centre  of  free 
spiritual  obedience  and  activity.  Therefore  the  Logos 
can  personally  identify  Himself  with,  and  reveal  Himself 
through,  humanity.  But  are  we  entitled  to  say  that  His 
Incarnation  is  not  only  possible,  but  necessary — an  in- 
dispensable stage  in  the  self-revelation  of  God  ?  It  is 
well  to  remember  that  in  the  New  Testament  no  such 
question  is  ever  raised.  All  its  interpretations  of  the 
world  and  human  experience,  all  its  forecastings  of  the 
future,  are  focussed  on  the  actual  life  and  death  of  Christ. 
There  they  take  their  rise,  and  never,  even  in  their 
furthest  movement,  lose  the  consciousness  of  the  Cross. 
This,  however,  does  not  of  itself  prove  that  an  Incarna- 
tion, apart  from  the  problem  of  sin,  is  not  implied  in 
the  truths  that  Scripture  declares,  or  may  not  be  fairly 
deduced  from  them. 

What,  then,  is  the  motive  of  the  Incarnation  as  the 
New  Testament  views  it?  It  was  God's  rectification  of 
His    moral    world.       All    creation,    which    was    but    the 

as  self-conscious  beings  possessing  freedom  and  immortality,  and  of  that  order 
man  is  the  typical  representative,  because  he  has  race-existence,  which  the 
angels  have  not  (see  Edwards,  The  God- Man,  pp.  12,  13).  He  is  thereby 
correlated  to  the  evolution  of  creation,  as  we  know  it.  The  race,  not  the 
individual  man,  is  the  frue  unit  of  humanity.  The  Son,  in  assuming  man- 
hood, l)ecame  not  only  a  Man,  but  Man  ;  and  thus  the  Incarnation  has  a 
universal  significance.  I  confine  myself  in  this  discussion  to  wliat  comes 
definitely  within  the  sphere  of  our  experience  ;  and  whatever  our  faith  may 
affirm  as  reasonable,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  existence  of  angels  is  verified 
by  actual  knowledge. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  185 

working  of  His  love,  led  up  to  man;  and  he  who  was 
its  crown  had  ceased  to  reflect  that  love.  The  meaning 
of  the  whole  created  process  was  lost.  The  only  means 
whereby  its  significance  could  be  restored,  and  man 
lifted  up  to  that  filial  relation  to  God  which  was  the 
highest  work  of  the  Logos,  was  by  the  personal  in- 
dwelling of  the  same  Logos  in  a  human  life.  And  in 
restoring  man  to  his  sonship  He  re-quickened  in  him  the 
lost  vision  of  the  world  as  the  sphere  where  the  same 
love  was  at  work  which  revealed  its  highest  glory  in  the 
humiliation  of  the  Cross.  The  Incarnation  of  the  Son 
was  not  His  one  revelation  of  God,  but  the  interpretation 
to  sinful  humanity  of  all  His  other  revelations  of  Him  in 
nature  and  history  and  moral  experience,  which  have 
been  darkened  by  sin.  This  act  of  unspeakable  con- 
descension, outreaching  every  other  expression  of  His 
nature,  this  locating  of  Himself  within  the  limits  of  the 
humanity  He  had  created,  was  worthy  of  Him,  and  with 
all  its  mystery  is  credible  by  us,  because  it  was  love  by 
an  unmeasured  sacrifice  regaining  love's  own  lost  work. 

There  are  two  chief  considerations  which  have  led 
many  to  maintain  that  the  Incarnation  has  a  deeper 
significance  than  this  :  that  it  has  its  root,  not  in  redemp- 
tion, but  in  creation,  and  that  the  conditions  of  pain  and 
death  associated  with  it  as  a  historic  fact  are  only  modi- 
fications in  its  essential  form,  caused  by  redemptive  needs. 

I.  The  first  of  these  is,  that  Christ  as  redeeming 
Lord  is  represented  in  Scripture  as  the  final  cause  of 
creation,  in  whom  all  things,  "  the  things  in  the  heavens 
and  the  things  upon  the  earth,"  find  their  unification. 
He  is  not  merely  the  creative  agent.  He  is  the  goal  and 
crown,  of  the  universe.      And  it  is  argued  that  it  is  in- 


1 86  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

conceivable  that  He  could  be  so,  unless  this  function 
belonged  to  II im,  as  incarnate,  in  the  essential  plan  of 
the  world.  If  in  Him  alone  God's  purpose  in  creation  is 
summed  up,  He  could  not  be  an  intercalated  or  super- 
induced factor.  But  the  Incarnation,  even  if  conditioned 
by  sin,  does  not  constitute  a  departure  from  God's  plan 
of  the  world  :  it  is  emphatically  the  realisation  of  it  in  a 
particular  form,  clue  to  a  tremendous  and  unparalleled 
necessity  created  by  the  action  of  free  spirits.  The 
Logos,  whether  Incarnate  or  not,  is  the  reXo?  as  well  as 
the  a/5%»;  of  creation.  The  KevwaL^  did  not  alter  his  rela- 
tion to  the  universe.  Even  if  we  adopt  the  extreme 
view  ^  that  it  implied  the  absolute  abandonment  by  the 
Son  of  His  cosmic  prerogative,  it  was  a  temporary  sur- 
render, followed  by  a  complete  resumption.  Conse- 
quently, in  this  aspect  of  the  matter,  which  is  funda- 
mental, the  only  difference  introduced  by  the  Incarnation 
was  at  most  that  between  the  continuous  exercise,  and 
the  momentary  or  partial  suspension,  of  an  inherent 
sovereignty. 

In  another  aspect,  indeed,  a  new  element  is  added, — 
the  human  nature  which  He  assumed,  and  which  remains 
indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  divine  in  the  unity  of 
His  person.  This,  it  may  be  said,  inevitably  changes 
the  proportion  of  things  by  raising  humanity  to  a  supre- 
macy which  it  did  not  formerly  possess,  and  making 
it  the  medium  of  His  relation  to  all  other  parts  of  crea- 
tion. But,  as  has  been  shown,  man  holds  already  by 
the  constitution  of  his  being  the  primacy  in  nature.  He 
is  its  point  of  conscious  contact  with  God,  the  eye  witli 
which  it  sees  Him,  the  head  to  which  it  grows  up  and  in 

^  Sec  1jc1(jw,  pp.  200-3. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  187 

which  it  reaches  its  fulfilment.  He,  as  the  sole  true  type 
of  sonship,  is  creation's  one  image  and  analogue  of  the 
eternal  Son.  A  disorganised  humanity  means  a  dis- 
rupted universe,  and  a  disrupted  universe  is  the  failure  of 
God's  original  plan.  Therefore  the  Incarnation  is  not  in 
itself  the  conferring  upon  man  of  a  priority  which  is  not 
his  ;  it  is  the  restoration  to  man  of  a  priority  he  has 
forfeited,  and  a  priority  without  which  the  world  would 
cease  to  be  the  expression  of  God's  will.  It  is  not  the 
altering  of  the  relation  in  which  the  Son  originally  stands 
to  all  things,  but  the  re-establishment  of  it.  Hence  the 
apostle  declares  that  the  whole  creation  will  only  attain 
its  deliverance  and  realisation  at  the  revealing  of  the  sons 
of  God.i 

Thus,  even  if  we  regard  the  Incarnation  as  condi- 
tioned by  sin,  it  is  in  no  sense  a  subversion  or  essential 
reconstruction  of  God's  plan  of  the  world.  It  is  indeed 
a  modification  of  it,  only  because  that  plan  is  to  the  eye 
of  Him  "  in  whom  is  no  before "  disastrously  modified 
already .2  Nor  do  we  get  rid  of  the  fact  of  modification 
by  saying  that  redemption  was  no  afterthought  in  God, 
that  His  plan  of  the  universe  was  one,  and  that  "  the 
foresight  and  permission  of  sin  was  from  the  first  in- 
cluded in  it."  ^  For  we  speak  of  God's  "  foresight  and 
permission  of  sin,"  but  we  do  not  speak  of  His  foresight 
and  permission  of  man's  sonship.  The  sonship  is  His 
clear  purpose,  the  end  towards  which  He  w^orks  and 
subordinates  all.  It  is  of  His  calling  and  operation, 
which  sin   is   not.       Sin   is   there,  not  according   to   His 

^  Rom.  viii.  19-23. 

^  On  the  expression  "God's  Plan  of  the  World,"  see  Note  27,  p.  433. 

^  Orr,  Ch7-istian  View  of  God  and  the  World,  p,  323. 


1 88  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

will,  but  against  it ;  and  the  Christian  conscience  is 
violated  when,  through  any  metaphysical  theory  of  the 
necessary  unity  of  the  world,  it  is  treated  as  an  in- 
dispensable factor  in  the  moral  evolution  of  man.^ 
Ideally,  therefore,  i.e.  from  the  standpoint  of  God's  in- 
tention, it  is  an  intruder ;  and  it  is  surely  natural  to 
suppose  that  the  means  adapted  to  its  expulsion  and  a 
reversal  of  its  effects  should  contain  elements  or  condi- 
tions not  required  in  the  normal  development  of  the 
world  as  it  lay  in  the  heart  of  God.  You  cannot  get 
your  aboriginal  unity  of  plan,  unless  you  make  the 
disease  inherent  as  well  as  the  cure. 

2.  The  second  reason  adduced  in  support  of  this 
view  is  that,  as  the  Incarnation  contains  the  fullest 
manifestation  of  God,  it  is  irrational  to  think  that  the 
highest  blessing  to  mankind  could  be  contingent  on 
human  sin  ;  it  must  depend,  not  on  what  lies  outside  of 
God,  but  on  His  own  nature.^  The  apparent  force  of 
this  argument  comes  from  an  inadequate  realisation  of 
what  the  absence  of  sin  would  mean  for  humanity.  The 
ideal  sinless  state  which  we  figure  to  ourselves,  apart 
from  the  glory  of  the  Incarnation,  retains  too  much  the 
characteristics  of  our  dim  and  struggling  experience. 
But  every  obedience  leads  to  a  further  revelation  of  the 
divine  will ;  and  the  continuous  obediences  of  a  lifetime, 
unmarred  by  revolt  or  pause,  would  issue  in  an  incom- 
parable knowledge  of  Him  whom  the  pure  in  heart  see. 
And    if   the    whole    race    from    its    first   beginnings   had 

1  See  Note  33,  p.  450. 

2  Cf.  Martensen,  Christian  Dogmatics,  pp.  260-263  ;  Westcott,  Epistles 
of  St.  John,  p.  315.  Westcott's  Essay  on  "The  Gospel  of  Creation"  is 
specially  valuable  for  ils  full  account  of  the  history  of  the  question.  See  also 
Dorner,  Person  of  Christ,  div.  ii,  vol.  i.  pp.  361-369. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  189 

remained  true  to  itself  and  to  God,  each  generation 
bequeathing  to  its  successor  the  heritage  of  its  acquired 
moral  strength  and  insight,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
conceive  the  height  of  spiritual  vision  to  which  humanity 
could  rise.  The  same  spirit  that  descended  on  the 
sinless  Jesus,  and  dwelt  in  Him,  would  rest  upon  the 
sinless  race  continually,  and  through  His  constant  illumi- 
nation it  might  attain  even  to  such  knowledge  of  its 
sonship  as  would  reveal  to  it  the  eternal  Son  as  the 
source  of  sonship.  "  The  revelation  of  God,"  as  Principal 
Edwards  puts  it,  "  might  still  be  mediated  without  the 
Incarnation."  ^ 

But  we  are  here  in  the  region  of  pure  speculation. 
We  have  no  calculus  that  would  enable  us  to  compare 
the  knowledge  of  divine  things  possible  to  the  redeemed 
soul  with  that  attainable  by  the  sinless  through  an 
unbroken  obedience.  We  cannot  say  that  the  latter 
knowledge  would  be  lesser  or  lower,  though  it  would  be 
of  a  different  character.  And  the  difference  remains, 
whether  we  eliminate  a  personal  Incarnation  altogether, 
or  only  the  redemptive  aspect  of  it.  For  the  Incarna- 
tion without  the  Cross  would  lack  precisely  that  revela- 
tion of  God's  love  which  is  to  us  the  most  immediately 
impressive  and  soul-subduing — His  yearning  compassion 
for  the  unworthy.  "  God  commendeth  His  love  toward 
us,  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us."  ^ 
If  we  cannot  in  thought  get  beyond  the  "  O  felix  culpa,"  ^ 

1  The  God-Man,  p.  82.  -  Rom.  v.  8. 

^  "O  felix  culpa  quoe  talem  ac  tantum  meruit  habere  redemptorem," — part 
of  a  hymn  used  in  some  mediaeval  Churches.     Cf.  the  words  of  the  sequence  : 

"  O  culpa  nimium  beata 
Qua  redempta  est  natura." 

See  the  references  in  Westcott,  ibid.  pp.  280,  284. 


I  go  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

and  yet  believe  that  the  loss  entailed  by  the  absence 
of  the  redemptive  aspect  of  love's  manifestation  would 
be  in  some  way  compensated,  nay,  swallowed  up  in 
glory,  then  there  is  no  difficulty  in  believing  that 
the  further  apparent  loss  involved  in  the  absence  of 
the  incarnate  Christ  would  be  equally  compensated  out 
of  the  depths  of  the  divine  riches.  We  may  be 
able  to  compute  the  loss ;  we  cannot  measure  the 
gain. 

And  if  the  view  which  associates  the  Incarnation  with 
sin  be  not  open  to  these  objections,  it  has  this  to  say  for 
itself,  that  it  helps  to  make  the  Incarnation  morally 
more  credible.  There  is  a  correspondence  between 
means  and  end.  There  is  an  appreciation  of  its  mystery 
as  an  unparalleled  stage  in  the  self-revelation  of  God. 
That  the  Son  in  His  creative  agency  should  work 
towards  the  realisation  in  creation  of  a  humanity  bear- 
ing the  stamp  and  character  of  His  sonship  is  one  thing ; 
it  is  a  normal  process  of  evolution  through  the  power  of 
the  Logos  from  inanimate  matter  up  to  human  sonship. 
That  He  should  become  personally  incarnate  is  quite 
another :  it  is  a  unique  act.  For  what  does  it  involve  ? 
Even  when  we  eliminate  all  the  disastrous  conditions 
that  sin  has  produced, — ignorance  and  pain  and  death,^ 
— man  still  remains  subject  to  the  limitations  of  his 
finitude.  He  is  present  here,  and  not  there ;  he  appears 
and  disappears  with  his  generation.  However  far  his 
knowledge  develops,  it  is  not  omniscience.  Therefore 
the  Incarnation,  in  a  sinless  as  really  as  in  a  sinful  world, 
implies  a  Kevo)ai<;,  a  self-emptying  of  the  Son  in  order  to 
His  identification  with  man  under  the  limits  of  time  and 
^  See  latter  part  of  Xote  25,  p.  422. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  191 

space.i  That  this  unimaginable  surrender  of  divine 
prerogatives  was  a  part  of  the  essential  plan  of  God's 
revelation  of  Himself,  appears  to  me  wholly  improbable, 
and  only  to  become  probable  through  the  arising  of  a 
dire  and  exceptional  problem,  which  love  for  its  own 
sake  had  to  solve. 

Moreover,  when  we  ascribe  it  to  the  creative  rather 
than  the  redemptive  work  of  the  Son,  we  take  from  the 
latter  some  of  its  incomparable  significance.  It  is  true 
that,  from  the  peculiar  appeal  which  suffering,  voluntarily 
embraced  for  a  high  cause,  makes  to  the  human  heart, 
it  is  the  Agony  and  the  Cross  that  most  directly  arrest 
the  sinner,  and  give  him  his  penetrating  sense  of  the 
pitying  Fatherhood  of  God.  But  it  matters  a  great 
deal  to  the  depth  of  his  spiritual  life  whether  he  ulti- 
mately measures  the  darkness  of  his  guilt  only  by  the 
suffering  that  accompanied  the  Incarnation,  or  also  by 
the  Incarnation  itself;  whether  sin,  as  he  thinks  of  it, 
only  brought  the  Son  of  God — who  in  any  case  would 
have  become  incarnate — to  a  ministry  of  sorrow  and  the 
bitterness  of  death,  or  whether  it  actually  drew  Him  to 
the   ickvwcn<^   of  a   human    existence,    with   all    that    that 


^  If  it  be  said  that  in  that  case  His  humiliation  must  continue  for  ever, 
seeing  that  He  has  permanently  "taken  the  Manhood  into  God,"  the  reply 
is  obvious.  Though  we  do  not  possess  the  data  which  would  enable  us  to 
realise  the  nature  of  our  Lord's  risen  and  glorified  Humanity,  yet,  ex  hypo- 
thesis it  is  such  as  does  not  limit  His  divine  power  and  knowledge.  His 
earthly  Humanity  did  so,  as  we  see  ;  and,  under  any  conceivable  conditions 
of  sensuous  existence,  must  have  limited  them.  To  argue  back  from  the 
former  state  to  the  latter,  and  maintain  that,  because  a  non-sensuous  and 
spiritual  manhood,  which  exists  only  for  faith,  involves  for  the  Son  no 
h  imiliation,  therefore  a  manhood  in  flesh  and  blood,  as  we  know  it,  might 
involve  none,  is  simply  to  denude  the  latter  state  of  all  that  gives  it  meaning 
in  our  experience,  and  to  ascribe  to  it  the  mysterious  attributes  of  the  spiritual 
body  and  the  risen  Humanity. 


192  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

involved.  Let  anyone  read  Paul's  great  passage  ^  on 
the  progressive  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  from  "  being  on  an 
equality  with  God  "  to  the  shame  of  the  Cross,  and  let 
him  say,  "  Up  to  the  self-emptying,  or  assumption  of 
humanity,  it  was  a  necessary  creative  act,  and  only  the 
subsequent  stages  of  it  had  a  redemptive  meaning,"  and 
then  let  him  ask  himself  whether  the  conception  of  sin, 
and  of  the  revelation  of  love  it  has  called  forth,  has  not 
lost  something  of  the  overwhelming  intensity  that  it 
bore  for  Paul  himself.  A  philosophical  theory  of  Chris- 
tianity, however  attractive,  which  lessens  the  horror  of 
guilt  or  the  greatness  of  love's  mystery  in  redemption,  is 
purchased  at  too  dear  a  cost. 

Can  we,  then,  form  to  ourselves  any  conception  of  the 
kind  of  personality  implied  in  the  Incarnation  ?  The  early 
Church  was  compelled  to  face  the  question,  because  it 
found  that  under  the  categories  derived  from  Greek  philo- 
sophy, which  supplied  a  new  and  permanent  organon  to 
thought,  interpretations  were  given  of  Christ's  personality 
which  emptied  it  of  its  essential  significance.  It  had  to 
formulate  its  faith  in  order  to  prevent  the  spiritual  content, 
of  which  it  was  well  assured,  from  being  explained  away. 

^  Phil.  ii.  5-1 1.  Considering  the  long-continued  conflict  of  eminent 
exegetes  on  the  significance  of  the  different  clauses  in  Phil.  ii.  5-1 1,  it  would 
be  rash  to  say  that  Dr.  E.  H.  Giftbrd,  in  his  recent  volume  ( 7'he  Incarna- 
Hon),  has  settled  the  question  ;  but  he  certainly  gives  some  good  reasons  for 
holding  that  "the  form  of  God"  in  which  the  Son  originally  existed  He 
retained  in  His  Incarnation,  and  that  it  is  therefore  to  be  distinguished  froni 
"the  being  on  an  equality  with  God"  which  He  then  surrendered.  But  this 
interpretation  leaves  the  Kenotic  problem  (sec  below,  pp.  195  fif.)  precisely 
where  it  was.  Everyone  is  agreed  that  Paul  did  not  mean  to  represent  the 
Son  of  God  in  His  great  act  of  self-renunciation  as  ceasing  to  be  divine. 
What,  then,  did  He  give  up?  i.e.  what  is  included  in  the  phrase,  to  dvai 
iaa  d€(^?  So  far  as  any  answer  is  possible,  it  must  be  found  in  the  recorded 
facts  of  Christ's  life.  See,  however,  Dr.  liruce's  exegesis  of  the  passage, 
Huiniliation  of  Christy  4th  ed. ,  pp.  15-22. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  193 

It  is  in  this  li^i^ht  that  the  findings  of  the  four  great 
Councils  are  to  be  understood.  When  the  Creed  of 
Chalcedon,  after  repeating  the  declarations  of  Nicaea 
and  Constantinople  as  to  Christ's  true  Deity  and  true 
Humanity,  went  on  to  affirm  that  the  Incarnation  was 
not  the  union  of  two  personalities,  a  divine  and  a  human, 
but  the  assumption  by  the  Son  of  human  nature  in  such 
wise  that  the  two  natures  remained  the  same,  without 
confusion  yet  without  separation,  in  the  unity  of  a  single 
personal  life,  it  was  not  attempting  to  explicate  the 
method  of  the  Incarnation,  but  to  assert  its  reality.  Had 
it  been  intended  to  make  it  more  comprehensible,  it 
would  have  been  a  pitiful  failure.  Almost  any  of  the 
antagonistic  views  had  more  logical  self-consistency  than 
the  Church  doctrine.  The  Deity  of  Christ  was  more 
formally  credible  on  the  supposition  of  a  doketic  than 
of  a  real  humanity ;  the  inseparableness  of  the  divine 
and  human  natures,  as  asserted  against  Nestorius,  more 
apparently  credible  on  the  Eutychian  hypothesis  of  a 
blending  of  the  two,  or  a  transubstantiation  of  the  latter 
into  the  former,  than  on  the  retention  by  each  nature  of 
its  permanent  characteristics.  But  the  Church  cared 
nothing  about  logical  contradictions ;  what  it  did  care 
for  was  to  see  that  it  was  not  robbed  of  any  side  of  the 
truth  implied  in  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  under 
the  pretext  of  a  more  exact  and  systematic  theory.^  It 
was  led  from  one  definition  to  another,  because  the  same 
metaphysical  interest,  which  had  failed  in  a  direct  attack 
on  the  reality  of  Christ's  Deity  and  Humanity,  proceeded 

^  Canon  Gore  well  remarks  that  there  is  no  more  signal  evidence  of  a 
divine  providence  watching  over  the  fortunes  of  the  Church  than  the  Church's 
persistent  loyalty,  in  its  a^ifhoritative  decisions,  to  the  true  humanity  of  Christ, 
in  spite  of  strong  individual  prepossessions.     Dissertations,  y>^.  1 38,  139. 

13 


194  '^^^^  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

to  such  a  rendering  of  their  relations  as  mvolved  a  denial 
of  that  reality.  It  affirmed  the  diverse  elements  in  the 
complex  impression  which  Christ  made  irresistibly  upon 
its  experience.  In  embarking  on  its  career  of  defini- 
tion, the  Church  was  essentially  not  speculative,  but 
declaratory.  Its  formulae  were  negative  rather  than 
positive.  Their  purpose  was  to  conserve,  not  to  vindi- 
cate philosophically,  the  content  of  the  Faith.^ 

The  Chalcedon  symbol  owes  to  this  characteristic  at 
once  its  merit  and  its  defect ;  its  merit  as  emphatically 
safeguarding  a  real  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,  its 
defect  as  containing  an  exaggeratedly  antithetic  pre- 
sentation of  the  two  factors  in  the  double  truth.  It 
conveys  too  abstract  a  conception  of  Christ's  Deity  as  it 
existed  in  the  Incaj-nation^  by  bringing  together  the  two 
natures  in  their  totality,  as  if  the  divine  attributes 
remained  in  all  respects  unchanged.  But  this  is  to  be 
untrue  to  the  actual  revelation  which  it  professes  to  inter- 
pret. It  takes  no  account  of  the  sacrifice  w^hich  Christ 
made  in  exchanging,  to  use  Paul's  expression,  "  the  form  of 
God  " — or,  if  a  different  exegesis  be  adopted,  "  the  being 
on  an  equality  with  God  " — for  the  "  form  of  a  servant " 
and  "  the  likeness  of  men."  The  Gospels  reveal  some- 
thing at  least  of  what  that  sacrifice  meant.  They  show 
that,  however  wide  and  deep  his  knowledge,  especially  in 
the  sphere  of  human  character  and  the  Father's  purpose, 
— so  deep  and  unique,  indeed,  as  to  suggest,  if  not  to 
imply,  a  transcendent  quality  in  His  nature, — yet  it  was 
not  omniscience.-  Still  more  plainly  He  was  not  omni- 
present, for  the  "  illocal   ubiquity "  which  the   Lutherans 

'  Sec  Note  28,  p.  435. 

'  I'iii.  ante^  Lecture  III.,  and  Note  13,  p.  39S. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  195 

attribute  to  His  humanity  is  as  fantastic  as  it  is  incom- 
prehensible.^ Nor  did  He  retain  His  omnipotence ;  He 
wrought  His  miracles  by  virtue  of  the  power  committed 
to  Him  by  the  Father,  received  in  answer  to  prayer,  and 
conditioned  in  its  exercise  by  the  Higher  Will  to  which 
He  submitted  His  own.^  So  long  as  these  facts  were 
not  perceived  or  faced,  it  was  natural  that  the  Church, 
notwithstanding  the  Creed  of  Chalcedon,  should  remain, 
as  it  did  for  centuries,  practically  monophysite.  The 
human  consciousness  of  Christ  was  phantasmal.^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  what  is  known  as  Kenotic 
Christology  is  in  this  respect  immensely  nearer  to  his- 
torical truth  than  the  old  abstract  idea  of  Christ's  Deity, 
and  that  it  avoids  some  of  the  antinomies  into  which  the 
latter  is  driven.  But  it  has  difficulties  of  its  own  which 
it  cannot  overcome. 

Perhaps  no  better  statement  can  be  given  of  it  in  its 
more  thoroughgoing  form  than  that  of  Godet.  "  He 
knew  Himself  as  Son  with  that  knowledge  with  which 
the  Father  Himself  knew  Him  eternally,  and — here  is  that 
putting  off*  upon  which  all  the  rest  depends — that  con- 
sciousness of  sonship  which  was  His  light.  He  allowed  to  be 


^  Bruce,  Htimiliation  of  Christ,  4th  ed.,  pp.  90,  91,  108. 

^  Cf.  Godet,  Defence  of  the  Christian  Faith,  p.  255. 

^  Cyril,  the  famous  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  died  (a.d.  444)  shortly 
before  the  Chalcedon  Council,  and  whose  views  as  against  the  Antiochenes 
became  dominant  throughout  the  Church,  uses  language  with  regard  to  the 
retention  of  the  divine  "properties"  in  the  Incarnate  life,  which  inevitably 
denuded  Christ's  human  nature  of  its  reality.  "  "When  the  disciples,"  he  says, 
"wished  to  learn  things  above  them,  He  (Christ)  usefully  pretended  not  to 
know,  that  they  might  not  be  grieved  because  they  were  not  admitted  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  mystery."  See  the  catena  of  passages  from  Cyril's  works, 
quoted  by  Professor  Bruce,  op.  cit.  p.  366  ff.  Cf.  also  Gore,  Dissertatio}is, 
passim,  and  R.  L.  Ottley,  Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  vol.  ii.  pp.  80-86. 

■*  Dcpouillciiient. 


196  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

extinguished  within  Him  {il  T a  laissee  s  eteindre  au-dedaiis 
de  lui),  to  retain  only  His  inahenable  personaHty,  His 
*  ego/  endowed  with  Hberty  and  intelligence  as  every 
human  '  ego ' ;  for  our  personality  is  formed  in  the  image 
of  His.  In  virtue  of  this  self-abasement,  He  was  able 
to  enter  into  a  human  development  completely  similar  to 
ours."  ^  In  Godet's  view,  up  to  the  age  of  thirty  Jesus 
underwent  a  purely  human  growth  from  innocence  to 
holiness.  He  did  not  yet  know  Himself.  The  distinct 
consciousness  of  His  dignity  as  Logos  only  awoke  in 
Him  at  His  baptism,  when  His  special  mission  as  Revealer 
and  Redeemer  began.  But  while  the  baptism  restored 
to  Him  His  consciousness  of  Sonship,  it  did  not  restore 
Him  to  His  filial  state,  the  divine  "  form  of  God,"  belong- 
ing to  Him.  There  was  an  immense  disproportion 
between  what  He  knew  Himself  to  be  and  what  He 
really  was.  Therein  lay  for  Him  the  possibility  of 
temptation,  therein  for  Him  the  work  of  patience.  It 
was  by  His  ascension  that  His  return  to  the  divine  state 
was  accomplished.  He  was  then  clothed  with  all  the 
attributes  which  He  possessed  before  His  Incarnation, 
but  clothed  with  them  as  the  Son  of  Man.  "  For  the 
very  reason  that  we  hold  the  divine  existence  of  the  Son 
to  be  a  matter  of  love  (the  bosom  of  tJie  Father),  and  not 
of  necessity,  as  with  Philo,  we  think  that  when  the  W^ord 
descends  into  the  world,  there  to  become  one  of  the  beings 
of  the  universe,  the  Father  can  enter  into  direct  relation 
to  the  world,  and  Himself  exercise  the  functions  of 
Creator  and  Preserver,  which  He  commonly  exercises 
through  the  mediation  of  the  Word."  ^ 

^  Etudes  Bibliques  {Noiweaii  Test.),  p.  135. 
-  Comni.  0)1  Sl.Jolui,  vol.  i.  pp.  396-404. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  197 

Now,  there  are  two  aspects  in  this  theory  which  may- 
be considered  apart,  though  really  inseparable :  (i)  Its 
construction  of  the  personality  of  Christ,  i.e.  of  the  Incar- 
nate life  itself.  (2)  What  this  construction  implies  regard- 
ing the  revelation  of  the  Godhead  given  in  Him. 

(i)  It  may  at  first  sound  startling  to  speak  of  the 
temporary  loss  by  Christ  of  His  divine  consciousness,  yet, 
as  that  consciousness  plainly  operated  during  His  ministry 
under  the  forms  of  human  thought,  and  as  a  child  imme- 
diately after  birth  has  no  self-consciousness  at  all,  how  is 
this  conclusion  to  be  avoided  ?  To  ascribe  to  the  child 
Jesus  a  divine  consciousness  before  His  human  conscious- 
ness awoke,  is  not  merely  to  declare  the  matter  hopelessly 
unintelligible,  it  is  to  contradict  the  whole  analogy  of  His 
later  life.  Nor  is  there,  as  Godet  remarks,  a  saying  or  a 
deed  in  the  Gospel  history  which  necessitates  or  supports 
such  a  conception.  Principal  Edwards  holds  that  during 
the  infancy  the  divine  consciousness  was  not  lost,  "  but 
only  quiescent "  ;  ^  but  is  anything  gained  for  thought  by 
the  change  of  expression  ?  If  the  Logos  "  emptied  Him- 
self" so  as  to  become  truly  incarnate  in  humanity,  was  it 
not  essential  that  He  should  pass  through  all  the  stages, 
unconscious  as  well  as  conscious,  of  a  human  life? 
Christ's  knowledge  of  His  unique  sonship  ought  most 
probably  to  be  assigned  to  a  period  earlier  than  the 
baptism  ;  ^  but,  at  whatever  point  attained,  it  was  reached 
through  His  deepening  human  experience. 

Undoubtedly,  Godet's  view  of  Christ's  person  as  dis- 
closed during  the  ministry  is  not  in  formal  accordance 
with  the   Chalcedon   doctrine.      But  the  very  meaning  of 

1  T.  C.  Edwards,  The  God- Man,  p.  131. 
^  See  Lecture  III.  pp.  93-99. 


igS  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

a  Kenotic  theory  is  that  it  is  an  attempt  to  surmount  the 
abstract  opposition  in  which  that  doctrine  placed  the  two 
natures.  Even  the  Chalcedon  formula,  at  least  in  its 
necessary  development,^  strove  to  mediate  the  opposition 
by  its  assertion  of  the  impersonality  of  the  human  nature 
in  Christ.  Obviously,  however,  there  is  little  illumination 
in  the  conception  of  a  complete  human  soul,  which  yet 
is  not  personal,  and  only  becomes  so  by  the  indwelling 
of  a  divine  ego,  so  long  as  that  "  ego  "  is  supposed  prac- 
tically to  retain  all  the  attributes  that  properly  belong  to 
Deity. 

How  far,  then,  does  Godet's  representation  help  us  to 
realise  to  ourselves  the  nature  or  the  extent  of  the  "  self- 
emptying  "  of  the  Son  ?  Any  rendering  which  we  give 
to  the  personality  of  Christ  must  include  the  relation  of 
supremacy  in  which  He  consciously  stood  to  the  race. 
How  do  we  correlate  this  with  human  experience  ? 
Godet's  explanation  is :  "  The  limits  of  our  individuality 
impress  a  relative  character  on  the  receptivity  for  the 
divine  belonging  to  each  of  us.  But,  in  consequence  of 
His  miraculous  birth,  the  Logos,  while  entering  into 
humanity,  reproduces  not  the  type  of  a  determinate 
hereditary  individuality,  but  that  of  the  race  itself  in  its 
essence  and  generality."  That  is  to  say,  Christ's  con- 
sciousness  possessed   this  "  collective  receptivity  "  for  the 

^  I  have  said,  "in  its  necessary  development,"  for  it  is  hardly  accurate  to 
represent  the  Chalcedon  Creed,  as  Schaff  seems  to  do  {Creeds  of  Christoidoniy 
p.  32),  as  formally  teaching  the  *'  impersonality  "  of  Christ's  human  nature  ; 
but  it  unquestionably  involves  it.  The  orthodox  view,  expressed  both  by 
Athanasius  and  Cyril,  was  that  the  manhood  of  Christ  had  no  independent 
personality.  But  the  doctrine  of  the  anhypostasia,  or  rather  of  the  cnhypostasia, 
is  specially  associated  with  its  subsequent  exposition  by  Lcontius  and  John  of 
Damascus.  See  Dorner,  Person  of  Christ,  div.  ii.  vol.  i.  passim  ;  and  R.  L. 
Ottley,  Doctrifie  of  the  lucaniation^  vol.  ii.  pp.  123-125,  139. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  199 

divine,  not  in  virtue  merely  of  that  which  made  His 
humanity  one  with  ours,  but  also  of  that  which  was  its 
peculiar  characteristic.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  personality 
is  the  most  inclusive  as  well  as  the  most  exclusive  of 
realities,  the  most  universal  as  well  as  the  most  individual. 
The  true  definition  of  it  may  perhaps  be  its  capacity  for 
love,  "  not  for  self-consciousness  but  for  self-sacrifice,  for 
life  in  others."  But  even  if  we  imagine  a  sinless  human 
soul,  utterly  filled  and  dominated  by  the  passion  of 
service  for  men,  though  it  would  possess  a  kind  of 
universal  life,  yet  its  universality  would  not  be  in  the 
least  comparable  to  the  universality  of  Christ.  For  the 
last  thing  possible  to  it  would  be  to  assume  that  air  of 
sovereign  authority  which  He  invariably  maintained. 
That  is  a  characteristic  which  can  only  belong  to  One 
who  has  not  merely  a  universal,  but,  as  Godet  expresses 
it,  a  "  collective "  consciousness.  That  there  may  be 
such  a  consciousness  is  distinctly  suggested  to  us  by  the 
fact  that  the  race,  not  the  individual  man,  is  the  true 
unit  of  humanity.^  But  can  we  form  any  idea  of  what 
it  is,  or  of  a  human  individuality  when  the  "  limits  "  that 
make  it  "  relative  "  are  removed  ?  The  Logos,  however 
self-emptied,  still  retained  of  His  essential  nature  what 
was  necessary  to  give  to  the  humanity  of  Christ  this 
transcendent  element. 

It  is  only  the  other  side  of  the  same  fact  which  is 
presented  in  what  we  call  His  divine  consciousness.  We 
may  say,  if  we  choose,  that  there  was  but  one  conscious- 
ness in  Him,  as  there  was  but  one  personality — that 
of  the  Word  made  flesh.  But  it  was  a  consciousness 
which  had   in   it  a  double  quality,  or  at  least  a  double 

^  Vid.  ante,  p.  183,  n. 


200  The  Pei^son  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

reference.  The  "  inalienable  ego  "  who  lived  and  thought 
under  true  human  conditions  knew  Himself  to  be  the 
Son  who  dwelt  in  the  glory  of  the  Father  before  the 
world  was ;  knew  therefore  that  the  very  essence  and 
principle  of  all  sonship  was  itself  incarnate  in  Him. 
And  it  was  because  He  was  conscious  of  this  that  His 
self-disclosure  necessarily  took  the  form  of  a  self-assertion 
which  could  not  belong  to  a  normal  sinless  humanity. 

If,  then,  the  Incarnation  signifies  "  the  coming  to  be 
of  a  manhood,"  ^  it  is  yet  a  manhood,  a  human  person- 
ality, capable  of  a  content  impossible  to  human  individu- 
ality as  we  know  it — a  unique  and  incommunicable 
relation  to  God,  and  a  "  collective "  and  equally  incom- 
municable relation  to  the  race.  Are  we  not  still  face  to 
face,  in  our  construction  of  the  incarnate  Deity,  though 
not  with  the  same  antinomy  as  before,  yet  with  a  union 
of  characteristics  which  eludes  definite  conception  ?  The 
forms  and  conditions  under  which  Christ  develops  are 
truly  human,  yet  the  personality  developed,  though 
human  also,  is  of  a  type  of  which  other  men  do  not 
possess  the  possibility,  and  which  they  cannot  even 
imaginatively  realise. 

(2)  When  we  pass  to  the  second  aspect  of  this  theory, 
and  consider  what  it  implies  as  regards  the  Godhead 
revealed  in  Christ,  we  are  confronted  by  something  very 
like  a  self-contradiction.  If  we  confine  our  thought  to 
the  Incarnate  life  itself,  probably  we  cannot  interpret  it 
better  than  by  saying  that  it  meant  the  renunciation  by 
the  Son  of  the  metaphysical  attributes  of  God — omnipo- 
tence, omniscience,  omnipresence — for  the  fuller  realisa- 
tion   of  that    love    which    is    the    inmost    nature    of   the 

^  Sec  I'iurbaiin,  Christ  in  Modern  I'hcoio^j',  \>.  354. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  201 

divine."^  But  how  can  we  reconcile  the  cessation  of  the 
Son's  cosmic  function  during  the  period  of  His  humiha- 
tion  with  what  Christ  reveals  of  Fatherhood  and  Son- 
ship  in  the  Godhead  ?  "  It  is  a  Father's  perfection  to 
originate,  a  Son's  to  receive."  But  our  life  is  in  its 
very  nature  a  receptive  life,  and  is  rooted,  not  in  the 
Father,  but  in  the  Filial  Will  that  is  eternally  in  God. 
Hence  it  was  not,  and  we  may  even  say  could  not  be, 
the  Father  who  became  incarnate,  but  the  Son,  who  is 
"  the  symbol  of  the  created  within  the  uncreated,"  "  the 
basis  of  objectivity  within  the  Godhead."  ^  Can  it  be 
supposed  that  the  Father  could  assume  the  Son's  preroga- 
tive in  creation  more  than  in  incarnation  and  redemp- 
tion ?  Does  not  such  an  assumption,  though  only  for  a 
time,  suggest  that  the  Son  is  not  really  as  essential  to 
the  Godhead  as  the  Father  is?  If  the  Latter  can  dis- 
charge temporarily,  no  matter  for  what  high  redemptive 
purposes,  the  cosmic  function  of  the  Former,  and  become 
the  ground  of  the  sonship  which  our  moral  life  denotes, 
what  satisfactory  reply  can  be  made  to  those  who  ask. 
Why  not  always  look  to  the  Father  directly  for  the 
creation  of  the  filial  will  in   us  ?  ^ 

Godet  holds  that  this  surrender  was  possible,  because 
the  divine  existence  of  the  Son  is  a  matter  of  love,  and 
not  of  necessity.  There  is  certainly  no  necessity  external 
to  the  Father  which  accounts  for  the  being  of  the  Son ; 
but  His  existence  is  an  eternal  moral  necessity  in  the 
Godhead,  just  because  God  is  in  Himself  love.  To  say 
that  the  Father's  originative  love  as  operative  throughout 

^  Fairbairn,  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  pp.  475-477. 
2  Ibid.  I.e. 

^  Cf.    R.   H.   Hutton,   Essays,    Theological,   2nd  cd.,   pp.  238-239.     See 
Note  26,  p.  432. 


202  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

creation  could  for  a  period  dispense  with  the  dependent 
and  responsive  love  of  the  Son  within  the  same  sphere, 
is  surely  to  introduce  confusion  into  the  Christian  con- 
ception of  God.  It  is  to  ascribe  to  the  Father  the  filial 
nature ;  for  in  the  absolute  divine  life  the  function  is  as 
the  nature  is.  Nor  is  it  a  small  thing  that  the  idea  of 
the  abandonment  by  the  Son  of  His  cosmic  prerogative, 
and  therefore  of  His  relation  of  full  equality  with  God, 
has  against  it  the  overwhelming  preponderance  of  Church 
judgment  in  the  past.^  That  judgment  may  have  been 
partly  determined  by  too  abstract  a  view  of  the  two 
natures  in  Christ.  But  we  may  recognise  to  the  full  the 
absence,  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  of  the  metaphysical  attri- 
butes of  God,  and  yet  feel  it  impossible  to  rest  in  an 
explanation  of  that  absence  which  perplexes  our  whole 
thought  of  the  interior  life  of  the  Godhead. 

It  is  to  be  acknowledged  that  Scripture  does  not 
explicitly  declare  the  permanence  and  continuity  of  the 
Son's  cosmic  relation  as  it  explicitly  reveals  His  self- 
limitation  in  the  Incarnation.  The  reality  of  His  self- 
impoverishment  is  for  us  the  primary  fact  in  the  manifes- 
tation of  God  in  flesh.  But  it  is  the  same  manifestation 
which  also  discloses  to  us  such  essential  distinctions  in 
the  Godhead  as  seem  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  any 
suspension  of  function.  If,  therefore,  our  theory  is  to 
cover  the  complete  truth  revealed  to  us  in  the  person  of 
Christ,  it  would  appear  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  Son, 
in  becoming  incarnate,  lived  a  double  life ;  ^  that,  while 
still  exercising  His   inalienable  prerogative  as  Mediator 

^  See  Gore,  Dissertations^  pp.  91-93,  98  ff.,  189. 

^  See  Martensen,  Christian  Dogmatics,  pp.  265-268.  Substantially  the 
same  view  is  taken  by  Canon  Gore,  Dissertations,  p.  215  ff.,  and  Principal 
Edwards,  The  God- Man,  pp.  loS,  109. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  203 

in  the  universe,  He  began  to  live  from  a  new  centre  of 
personality  under  the  conditions  of  manhood,  for  the 
gracious  purpose  of  redeeming  and  restoring  the  created 
sonship  which  had  ceased  to  reflect  His  image.  But 
though  such  a  supposition  may  represent  the  facts, 
the  attempt  to  think  it  out  ends  in  bewilderment.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  a  faint  illustration  of  this 
double  life  of  the  Logos  is  found  in  the  capacity  which 
intense  sympathy  gives  a  man  to  go  out  of  himself  and 
live  under  the  conditions  of  another's  more  limited 
thought.  "  He  must  not  abandon  his  own  higher 
standing-ground  if  he  is  to  benefit  the  object  of  his 
compassion.  But  remaining  what  he  was,  he  must  also 
find  himself  in  the  place  of  the  lower ;  he  must  come  to 
look  at  things  as  he  looks  at  them  ;  he  must  learn  things 
over  again  from  his  point  of  view."  ^  Is  it  not,  however, 
rather  extravagant  to  regard  this  as  an  instance  of  a 
personality  living  from  two  different  centres?  In  any 
case,  the  centres  are  necessarily  inter-related,  which 
implies  some  bond  or  principle  of  unification.  How, 
then,  do  they  illustrate  the  two  non-communicating  con- 
sciousnesses of  the  Logos  ? 

The  service  which  Kenotic  Christology  renders  is 
twofold:  (i)  It  represents  an  advance  on  the  Chalcedon 
symbol,  in  that  it  gives  a  truer  impression  of  the  New 
Testament  facts  and  teaching  as  to  the  divine  sacrifice 
involved  in  the  Incarnation,  and  thus  emphasises  the 
very  quality  that  endues  the  Incarnation  with  its  power 
of  moral  appeal.  (2)  By  insisting  that  the  elements  in 
Christ's  character  which  verify  His  Deity  are  not  meta- 
physical,  but   ethical   and   spiritual,   it   reminds    us    that 

^  Gore,  op.  cit,  p.  21S. 


204  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [L,ect. 

the  deepest  qualities  in  God  and  man  are  akin,^  and  that 
humanity  is  grounded  in  and  reproduces  the  eternal 
sonship  in  God.  But  man,  as  the  created  image  and 
reproduction  of  the  Logos,  is  still  only  His  work :  the 
personality  of  the  Logos  remains  unaffected.  In  the 
Incarnation,  it  is  this  central  personality  itself  which 
assumes  human  nature  and  becomes  a  human  person. 
It  can  hardly  be  said  that  any  of  the  Kenotic  theories 
make  the  type  of  personality  thus  resulting  really  com- 
prehensible to  us,  though  they  may  indicate  the  lines 
along  which  the  solution  lies.  Above  all,  with  regard 
to  the  Son's  function  in  relation  to  the  universe, 
they  present  us  with  the  alternative  of  contradicting 
what  seems  involved  in  the  revelation,  or  of  stating 
the  revelation  in  terms  which  bring  no  real  aid  to 
intelligence. 

But,  perplexing  as  the  union  of  the  divine  with  the 
human  in  Christ  is,  it  is  not  to  be  reduced  to  greater 
intelligibility  by  declaring  that  "  it  must  be  a  union  of 
which  humanity  is  capable,"  if  by  this  is  meant  that  we 
have  a  definite  idea,  drawn  from  the  experience  of  the 
race,  of  what  the  capacities  of  humanity  are,  and  that 
this  supplies  the  standard  by  which  each  individual  life 
must  be  tried.  Thus  the  sinlessness  of  Christ  is  rejected 
by  many  as  an  incredible  violation  of  the  law  of  develop- 
ment. They  have  gathered  a  certain  conception  of 
what  a  human  character  must  be,  and  then  imposed  it 
upon  Him,  ignoring  the  realities  of  His  earthly  life,  or 
explaining  them  away.  But  this  is  a  reversal  of  all 
intelligent  investigation.  If  we  would  understand 
Nature,  we  have  to  accept   her  surprises,  however  they 

^  Cf.  Orr,  Christian  Viciv  of  God  and  the  World,  pp.  2S4,  2S5. 


v.]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  205 

contradict  our  preconceptions.  And  if  we  would  know 
God,  we  must  be  content  to  keep  our  eyes  open  to  His 
revelations,  whether  they  seem  to  us  unique  or  not. 
Now,  the  uniquenesses  of  Christ  are  manifold  and  indubit- 
able ;  and  they  have  forced  the  Church  to  recognise  that 
He  was  not  only  divinely  possessed  beyond  other  men, 
but  the  Very  Incarnate  Son  of  God.  He  is  not  to  be 
judged  by  a  standard  outside  of  Him,  but  by  what  He 
is  in  Himself.  The  Church  holds  to  the  Incarnation, 
not  because  it  can  speculatively  resolve  its  contradic- 
tions, but  because  it  faces  the  facts,  and  finds  in  this 
faith  the  one  explanation  of  the  correspondence  between 
these  facts  and  the  abiding  needs  of  the  soul.  To  set 
up  an  a  priori  test,  and  rule  out  whatever  seems  excep- 
tional, is  the  surest  way,  whether  in  the  natural  or  the 
spiritual  sphere,  to  miss  the  truth  we  seek. 

We  have  seen  that  it  was  through  the  self-revelation 
of  Christ  that  a  new  conception  was  attained  of  God  as, 
in  His  essential  being,  both  Father  and  Son.  How  came 
this  conception  to  be  further  enlarged  by  the  doctrine  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  as  equally  with  the  Father  and  the  Son 
to  be  worshipped  in  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  ?  It  arose 
historically.  Believers  in  Christ  as  the  risen  Lord  were 
conscious  from  Pentecost  onwards  of  a  new  gift  of 
divine  life  and  power,  and  they  could  only  express  it  in 
the  words  of  Joel,  that  God  was  pouring  out  His  Spirit.^ 
Yet  the  Spirit  so  poured  out  had  a  different  significance 
for  them  from  that  borne  in  the  Old  Testament.  He 
was  no  longer  simply  the  gift  of  God,  but  the  gift  of  the 
Father  through  Him  whom  He  had  raised  up  and 
exalted.       And   this   experience   of   the   apostles  agreed 

^  Acts  ii.  16-18. 


2o6  The  Pe7'son  of  Christ  aiid  [Lect. 

with  what,  according  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Jesus  had 
led  them  to  expect,  when  He  spoke,  before  His  departure, 
of  the  Paraclete  who  should  abide  with  them  for  ever, 
and  whose  function  it  should  be  to  take  of  His  and 
show  it  unto  them.^  The  loving  fellowship  which  He 
had  vouchsafed  to  them  was  not  to  cease  with  His 
death ;  it  was  to  be  realised  in  a  character  and  degree 
hitherto  impossible.  It  was  expedient  that  He  should 
go  away :  ^  the  best  was  "  yet  to  be."  But  that  could 
hardly  be  said,  unless  they  were  to  be  under  the  con- 
tinual influence  of  a  personal  Spirit,  who  knew  them, 
sympathised  with  them,  rebuked,  consoled,  and  in  whom 
the  life  of  the  redeeming  and  reigning  Christ  was  made 
theirs. 

Hence  the  New  Testament  writers  instinctively  think 
of  the  Spirit  as  a  person,  and  ascribe  to  Him  actions 
that  are  the  expression  of  personality.^  His  activity  is 
so  absolutely  bound  up  with  the  person  and  the  work  of 
Christ,  that  Paul  employs  the  terms  Christ  and  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  as  convertible,  just  as  he  uses  the  terms 
God  and  the  Spirit  of  God.  When  he  speaks  of  "  Christ 
in  you,"  he  means  substantially  the  same  thing  as  the 
assertion  of  the  indwelling  Spirit,  and  in  one  remarkable 
passage  he  identifies  them,  "  The  Lord  is  the  Spirit."  "* 
Both  in  the  Pauline  Epistles  and  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
the  Spirit  is  the  alter  ego  of  Christ.^  He  is  Christ  in  an 
inward  and   abiding  form.      But  with  this  identity  there 

^  John  xiv.  26,  xvi.  13,  14.  -John  xvi.  7. 

'  See  International  Crit,  Comni.  on  Romans^  by  Sunday  and  Ileadlani, 
pp.  199,  200. 

■*  2  Cor.  iii.  17. 

**  See  Bruce,  Apologetics,  p.  481,  note  i  ;  St.  PauPs  Conception  of  Chris- 
tianity, p.  254. 


V.J  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  207 

is  also  a  difference.  Just  as  for  John  the  promised 
Spirit  is  "  another  "  Paraclete/  not  the  Master,  who  was 
soon  to  depart,  so  Paul  never  speaks  of  the  Christ  who 
died  and  rose  as  the  Spirit.  Hence,  though  it  is  true 
that  the  phrases,  "  He  will  come  unto  you,"  "  I  will  come 
unto  you,"  "  We  will  come  unto  you,"  are  interchange- 
able, that  is  not  because  there  is  any  confusion  of 
persons  or  functions  between  the  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit,  but  because  the  action  of  the  One  essentially 
involves  that  of  the  other  Two.  All  things  proceed 
from  the  Father  as  the  fount  of  life,  tJirough  the  Son, 
by  the  Spirit.  The  Three  are  one  inseparable  God  ;  and 
the  presence  of  the  Spirit  is  not  a  substitute  for  the 
presence  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  but  the  assurance 
and  realisation  of  it.^ 

Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit's  personality  was  first 
attained  through  the  revelation  of  God  in  redemption. 
He  who  was  the  Bringer  and  Interpreter  of  the  personal 
Christ,  and  the  one  organ  of  carrying  on  His  perpetual 
work  of  spiritual  renewal,  could  not  be  other  than  a 
person.  But  when  Christ  was  recognised  as  the  eternal 
Son,  by  whom  the  worlds  were  made,  it  carried  with  it 
the  recognition  of  the  Spirit  as  eternally  operating 
through  Him.  Like  the  Son,  He  is  a  universal  presence, 
and,  like  Him,  He  attains  His  full  and  proper  manifesta- 
tion only  in  the  moral  sphere,  as  specifically  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  Inspirer  of  all  good  in  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  men.  But  the  knowledge  of  His  personality 
is  only  to  be  reached  through  the  personality  of  the 
Son ;  and   the   Son  is  only  known  as  personal  through 

^  John  xiv.  16. 

^  Vid.  Gore,  Bampton  Lectures,  pp.  132,  133. 


2o8  TJic  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

His  Incarnation.^  In  the  case  of  those  who  are  igno- 
rant of  the  redemption  of  Christ,  the  Spirit  cannot  be 
the  medium  whereby  the  Son  is  revealed,  for  it  is  only 
by  and  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Incarnate  life  that 
the  full  consciousness  of  sonship  is  communicated.  None 
the  less  He  is  the  light  of  their  seeing,  dim  though  it 
be,  just  as  He  cleansed  the  vision  of  saints  long  before 
the  Son's  earthly  manifestation.  But  since  that  mani- 
festation has  taken  place.  He  has  now  a  special  and 
incomparable  gift  to  confer  from  Him  who  is  the  Lord 
and  Head  of  humanity.  They  who  have  received  this 
gift  of  sonship  through  the  eternal  Son  interpret  by  its 
light  all  other  revelations  of  God  in  the  natural  and 
moral  world. 

The  Trinity  is  essentially  a  Christian,  not  a  Jewish, 
conception.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  no  adumbra- 
tions of  it  are  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament.  It 
would  indeed  be  an  extravagant  literalism  which  inter- 
preted the  terms  God,  Word,  and  Spirit  in  the  narrative  of 
the  Creation,-  or  the  appearances  of  the  mysterious  Angel 
of  the  Lord,  as  signifying  in  the  Christian  sense  a 
distinction   of  persons   in   the    Godhead.      But,  figurative 

^  This  is  true  of  humanity  as  it  is,  but  not  necessarily  true  on  the  hypo- 
thesis of  humanity  as  unfallen.     See  a«/^,  pp.  188-9. 

2  "  God's  vital  force,"  says  Schultz,  in  reference  to  the  Creation-narrative, 
*' which  is  represented  in  a  concrete  way  as  His  breath,  proceeds  from  Him 
and  becomes  the  source  of  created  life  in  whatever  it  breathes  upon.  Over 
the  lifeless  and  formless  mass  of  the  world-matter  this  spirit  broods  like  a 
bird  on  its  nest,  and  thus  transmits  to  it  the  seeds  of  life,  so  that  afterwards, 
at  the  word  of  God,  it  can  produce  whatever  God  wills.  And  His  word 
creates  the  world — that  is,  God's  inner  world  of  thought  becomes,  through 
His  will,  the  source  of  life  outside  of  Himself.  The  Spirit  and  the  Word  of 
God  are  represented  as  forces  locked  up  in  God.  The  Spirit  appears  as 
very  independent,  just  like  a  hypostasis  or  person."  O.T.  Tlwoloi^y,  vol.  ii. 
p.  184.  On  the  Jewish  conception  of  God,  see  ibid.  pp.  1 16-179,  ^'"''1 
Oehler,  Theology  of  the  Ohi  Testament,  vol.  i.  pp.  1S7-196. 


V.J  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  209 

as  these  expressions  may  be,  they  at  least  show  that 
Hebrew  monotheism  did  not  conceive  of  God  as  a  mere 
unit.  The  very  multipHcity  of  names  and  attributes 
which  it  ascribed  to  Him,  while  rigidly  conserving  the 
monotheistic  idea,  implied  that  His  nature  could  only 
be  apprehended  as  that  which  involved  diversity  as  well 
as  unity.^  The  hypostatised  form  in  which  the  Spirit 
is  spoken  of  in  Second  Isaiah,  and  the  personifications 
of  Wisdom  in  Job  and  Proverbs,  point  in  the  same 
direction.  These  personifications,  says  Prof.  A.  B. 
Davidson,  "  mark  the  highest  point  to  which  Hebrew 
thought  on  the  world  rose."  ^  There  is,  doubtless,  a 
danger  of  our  imaginatively  reading  back  Christian  truth 
into  the  earlier  forms  of  God's  self-revelation ;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  if  God  be  indeed  a  Tri-une  personality, 
surely  some  suggestion  of  that  fact  would  not  be  wholly 
absent  even  from  the  preparatory  stages  of  His  mani- 
festation. It  could  not  be  more  than  a  suggestion,  or 
faint  adumbration ;  otherwise,  the  Trinity  would  be  not 
a  Christian  but  a  Jewish  doctrine.  But  just  as  the 
Jewish  idea  of  the  Messiah,  though  it  did  not  regard  the 
coming  deliverer  as  divine,  yet  unconsciously  attributed 
to  him  functions  which  only  a  divine  person  could 
discharge,  so  the  pictorial  representations  in  the  Old 
Testament  of  the  self-revealing  activity  of  God  were 
the  expression  of  half-realised  needs,  only  to  be  fully 
met  in  the  historic  revelation  of  the  Father  in  the  Son 
by  the  Spirit. 

The  attempts  to  vindicate  speculatively  a  triple  dis- 
tinction  inherent   in   the   Godhead   do  not   seem    to    me 

^  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  by  Principal  Caird,  p.  312. 
"^  Job  {Caf}ibridge  Bible  for  Schools),  Introduction,  p.  62. 

14 


2IO  The  Person  of  Christ  and  [Lect. 

to  have  attained  much  success,  suggestive  in  many  ways 
as  they  are.  One  can  appreciate  the  argument  that, 
as  all  self-consciousness  implies  a  subject  and  an  object, 
so  God  as  the  eternal  Self-consciousness  must  contain 
both  factors  within  Himself,  if  the  object  is  to  be 
adequate  to  the  subject.  One  can  still  better  appreciate 
the  argument  that,  as  love  implies  a  giver  and  receiver, 
so  God  as  the  eternal  Love  is  both  in  one — the  Father 
who  is  the  source  of  love,  and  the  Son  who  receives  and 
returns  it.  That  God  is  in  Himself  a  fellowship,  that 
Sonship  in  Him  is  as  essential  as  Fatherhood, — this 
commends  itself  as  the  one  rational  interpretation  of 
the  spiritual  world.  Speculatively  we  get  a  Duality  in 
the  Godhead ;  we  do  not  so  easily  get  a  Trinity.  The 
difficulty  lies  in  the  third  movement  of  thought,  in  which 
the  Spirit  is  construed  as  the  unity  of  subject  and  object, 
of  Father  and  Son,  the  bond  of  Love  between  Them,  as 
Augustine  first  expressed  it ;  and  Mr.  Illingworth  puts 
the  case  very  mildly  when  he  says  that  "  a  personal 
object  is  easier  to  imagine  than  a  personal  relation."  -^ 
Probably,  however,  this  is  the  nearest  approach  that  can 
be  made  to  an  intellectual  rendering  of  the  interior  life 
of  God.  There  will  always  be  some  who  find  it  helpful 
and  impressive,  though  it  may  be  questioned  whether  it 
does  not  tend  to  reduce  the  idea  of  the  Spirit  to  that 
of  an  impersonal  influence. 

Whether  such  a  rendering  of  the  inner  life  of  God 
be  possible  in   regard   to   the   Spirit,  as   it  assuredly  is  in 

^  Illingwortli,  Personality,  Jlnviau  and  Divine,  p.  73-  For  Hegel's  con- 
ception of  Trinity  as  involved  essentially  in  Thought  itself — a  conception 
wliich  has  profoundly  influenced  all  sul)sec)uent  speculation — see  his  PhilosopJiy 
of  Kelii^ion  (K.T.  by  Speirs  and  Sanderson)  :  Part  III. — The  Absolute 
Religion. 


V.  ]  His  Revelation  of  the  Godhead  211 

regard  to  the  Son,  is  extremely  doubtful.  Dr.  Fairbairn 
states  the  truth  admirably :  "  While  the  Son  enables  us 
to  understand  the  being  and  action  of  personality  zvitJiin 
the  Godhead,  the  Spirit  enables  us  to  conceive  its  being 
and  action  witlwutr  ^  The  Spirit,  that  is,  is  to  be  known 
in  His  working  rather  than  in  what  He  is  in  Himself. 
This  is  true  to  the  whole  Scripture  presentation.  Yet 
even  in  His  working  it  is  hard,  in  the  creative  and 
cosmical  spheres,  to  distinguish  His  operation  from  that 
of  the  Son ;  nor  is  it  easy  in  the  moral  world  to 
differentiate  the  illuminating  Spirit  from  the  Logos 
"  that  lighteth  every  man."  It  is  only  when  we  realise 
His  function  in  the  order  of  God's  redemptive  revelation 
of  Himself  in  history  that  the  personality  of  the  Spirit 
becomes  to  us  a  clear  conviction.^ 

^  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  491. 

2  See  Note  29,  p.  436,  "  The  Personality  of  God." 


LECTURE    VI. 

THE  OBJECTIVE   ELEMENT  IN  THE  REDEMPTIVE 
WORK  OF   CHRIST. 


213 


SYNOPSIS. 

I.  The  two  aspects,   Objective   and  Subjective,  of  the  Work  of  Christ : 

danger  of  isolating  them. 
Their  correspondence  to  the  two  inseparable  Needs  of  the  soul. 
Does  God's  condemnation  of  sin  imply  an  actual  alienation  on  1 1  is  part, 

or  only  a  severance  on  ours  ? 
Misleading  analogies  drawn  from  human  propitiation. 

II.  The  Apostles  regarded  the  Death  of  Christ  as  the  Ground  of  Forgiveness. 

Was  this  due  to  an  Illusion  caused  by  their  Jewish  training  and  their 
specific  experience  ? 

The  attitude  of  Christ  towards  His  Death  :  the  effect  which  its  anti- 
cipation had  upon  Him. 

The  significance  of  the  Last  Supper. 

Christ's  consciousness  both  individual  and  representative. 

HI.   His  Death  the  Ground  of  Forgiveness  only  as  related  to — 
(i)  His  earthly  life. 
(2)  His  risen  life. 
The  order  of  St.    Paul's  exposition  in  Romatts :  Justification  and  the 

New  Life. 
The  need  of  appropriation  on  our  part  shows  that  the  Sacrifice  of  Christ 

is  not  a  '  quantitative  equivalent.' 
Dr.   Dale's  view  that  there  may  be  saving  faith  in  Christ  without  con- 
scious recognition  of  His  Death  as  a  propitiation  for  sins. 


214 


LECTURE    VI. 

The  Objective  Element  in  the  Redemptive 
Work  of  Christ. 

When  we  come  to  the  question  of  the  work  of  Christ 
in  relation  to  sin,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  we 
should  not  isolate  its  aspects,  as  if  they  had  a  separate 
and  independent  significance.  It  is  because  this  has 
been  done  so  frequently  that  the  objective  element  has 
awaked  such  opposition  on  moral  grounds. 

I.  The  purpose  of  Christ's  life  and  death  was  to  "  re- 
deem us  from  all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  Himself  a 
people  for  His  own  possession,  zealous  of  good  works." ^ 
It  was  to  regenerate  the  hearts  of  men  so  that  they 
might  be  in  truth  what  they  were  ideally  meant  to  be — 
the  children  of  God  ;  to  create  in  them  the  filial  spirit. 
Now,  it  was  just  this  filial  spirit  He  Himself  possessed — 
He  alone,  as  we  have  seen ;  and  no  achievement  for 
them  would  be  of  any  avail  unless  it  were  a  means  to 
the  end,  an  achievement  in  them,  a  realisation  in  their 
personal  nature  of  the  spiritual  quality  of  sonship  which 
belonged  to  Him.  Therefore  the  problem  is.  In  what 
sense  can  it  be  said  that  what  He  did  for  them,  or  in 
their  stead,  was  indispensable  to  secure  for  Him  the 
power  to  be  a  new  life  in  them  ? 

1  Tit.  ii,  14. 

215 


2i6  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

First,  it  is  essential  to  remember  that  Christ's  relation 
to  men  is  not  that  of  one  individual  to  others,  that  He 
is  not  simply  a  man,  but  Man.  He  bears  a  universal 
relationship  as  the  eternal  Son,  the  light  that  lighteth 
every  man.  He  is  more  than  a  member  of  the  race ; 
He  is  the  one  man  in  its  history  who  chose  to  be  born 
into  it.  In  His  earthly  life  He  spoke  of  Himself  as 
"  the  Sent  of  the  Father."  That  was  the  natural 
language  of  the  position  in  which  He  then  stood.  But 
in  His  absolute  nature  His  will  as  Son  was  one  with 
the  will  of  the  Father.  He  was  sent ;  He  also  came. 
And  He  came  into  a  race,  descended  into  it  from  above 
for  a  purpose  which  affected  the  whole  of  it  and  every 
member  of  it.  It  was  humanity  in  its  solidarity  that 
He  entered,  and  the  fact  of  His  tabernacling  in  flesh 
did  not  concern  those  whom  He  met  in  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem,  or  on  the  hillsides  of  Galilee,  more  than  the 
countless  multitudes  who  died  before  He  appeared,  or 
to  whom  His  story  is  a  tradition  out  of  the  long  past, 
or  who  have  never  heard  His  name.  In  the  days  of 
His  mortal  humiliation  this  was  hid  from  the  eyes  of 
others,  who  saw  Him  as  a  single  figure  among  many  in 
His  own  generation  ;  but  it  was  not  hidden  from  Him- 
self. This  universal  function  lay  at  the  heart  of  His 
self-consciousness,  and  even  occasionally  found  expression 
in  words  which  could  not  be  fully  understood  at  the 
time.^  Just  because  in  His  essential  being  as  the  Son 
He  bore  this  transcendent  relation  to  humanity  as  a 
whole.  He  could,  as  the  incarnate  Son,  take  up  a  position 
relatively  to  men,  and  accomplish  a  work  for  them, 
which    none   other   could   do. 

^  See  Note  24,  p.  416. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  217 

Secondly,  into  this  humanity  He  voluntarily  entered 
in  His  own  proper  person,  and  identified  Himself  as 
the  Sinless  One  with  the  sinful.  It  was  not  simply 
that  He  appeared  in  it,  He  became  one  with  it  in  order 
to  raise  it  into  its  true  life  of  communion  with  God. 
That  implied  more  than  the  fact  that  being  perfectly 
holy  He  had  to  suffer  through  association  with  the 
selfish  and  unworthy.  Suffering  indeed  is  the  inevitable 
experience  of  all  human  goodness,  environed  by  evil. 
It  has  been,  and  must  be,  both  as  inflicted  and  as 
voluntarily  undergone,  the  lot  of  all  prophets  and  re- 
formers, of  every  soul  that  lives  for  higher  ends  than 
its  neighbours  comprehend.  And  as  Christ's  goodness 
was  unspeakably  higher  than  that  of  the  best  of  men, 
differing  from  it  not  so  much  in  degree  as  in  kind,  so 
His  suffering,  through  intercourse  with  human  wilful- 
ness, misunderstanding,  and  treachery,  infinitely  surpassed 
theirs.  But  beyond  this,  and  underlying  it,  was  a  sorrow 
in  which  others  could  have  no  share,  and  which  came 
through  His  union  with  humanity  as  such,  and  with  all 
who  belonged  to  it.  His  divine  nature  enabled  Him 
to  identify  Himself  with  them  in  their  sinful  state,  so 
that  in  a  very  real  sense  He  could  act  for  them,  suffer 
for  them,  win  for  them  the  right  to  become  sons  of 
God.  We  are  apt  to  speak  as  if  Christ's  work  were 
only  to  impart  a  divine  life,  but  that  is  to  miss  the 
central  point,  which  is  that  He  came  to  impart  it  to  those 
who  had  a  blighted  record  behind  them,  and  an  old  and 
lower  life  within  them.  Before  Christ  could  acquire  the  ^ 
power  to  convey  to  them  the  new  life,  He  had  to  relate 
Himself  to  their  old  and  sinful  one,  to  take  upon  Him- 
self its   burden  and  bear  it  away.      Until   He  had  done 


2i8  The  Objective  Element  m  the  [Lect. 

this,  the  blessed  spirit  of  sonship  could  not  be  inspired 
into  them :  there  would  still  remain  the  remorse  of 
bitter  memories,  the  consciousness  of  a  gulf  separating 
them  from  God.  Not  only  could  tJicy  not  have  received 
the  new  spirit.  He  would  not  have  acquired  the  right 
to  impart  it.  He  might  as  a  man  have  had  it  Himself, 
just  because  personally  He  was  holy;  but  He  could 
not  have  made  it  theirs.  If  He  were,  in  a  word,  to 
be  the  head  of  humanity  in  its  renewed  and  regenerate 
state.  He  must  first  be  its  representative  in  its  sinful 
and  alienated  condition,  so  that  the  same  humanity 
might  pass  from  condemnation  and  subjection  into 
spiritual  peace  and  power. 

It  is  this  objective  side  of  the  work  of  Christ  which 
has  roused  such  antagonism  and  repudiation.  The  fierce 
denial  of  it,  with  which  we  are  familiar,  has  been  caused 
in  part  by  the  arbitrary  and  one-sided  presentation  of 
the  atonement,  for  which  many  theologians  are  re- 
sponsible. They  have  spoken  at  times  as  if  on  the  mere 
basis  of  Christ's  sacrifice  of  Himself  our  sins  are  done 
away,  and  the  guilty  are  treated  as  possessing  an  im- 
puted righteousness,  which  does  not  in  any  actual  sense 
belong  to  them.  No  doubt,  when  they  have  proceeded 
to  discuss  the  proclamation  of  salvation,  and  the  means 
whereby  the  soul  is  made  to  be  a  partaker  of  Christ's 
deliverance,  they  have  to  some  degree  supplied  the 
defect ;  but  in  expounding  the  atonement  itself  they 
have  so  isolated  it  from  its  inherent  and  abiding  relation 
to  the  new  life  which  Christ  brings,  that  they  have  quite 
naturally  stirred  vehement  protests  against  a  doctrine 
which  fails  to  meet  the  moral  needs  of  men,  and  which 
seems    even    to    contravene    the    dictates    of   conscience. 


VI.  J  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  219 

When,  however,  it  is  viewed  in  its  essential  connection 
with  the  other  and  subjective  aspect  of  Christ's  work 
in  the  soul,  instead  of  being  either  a  superfluity  or  a 
contradiction  of  ethical  law,  it  is  seen  to  be  a  profound 
necessity  for  man's  spiritual  experience. 

What  essentially  is  it  that  draws  a  man  to  Christ, 
and  what  is  it  he  finds  in  Him  ?  He  is  oppressed  by 
the  fact  of  his  own  helplessness  to  rise  into  a  true  fellow- 
ship with  God — oppressed  in  two  ways :  both  by  the 
thought  of  an  unworthy  past  which  he  cannot  undo, 
and  by  the  consciousness  of  an  evil  nature  within  him 
which  he  cannot  transform,  out  of  which  that  past  has 
sprung,  and  which  will  inevitably  work  the  same  woe 
in  the  future.  There  are,  therefore,  two  supreme  de- 
liverances which  he  longs  for — pardon  and  renewal  : 
pardon  first,  because,  till  the  burden  of  sin  is  removed, 
the  spirit  cannot  attain  to  perfect  peace,  nor  rise  to 
a  hope  for  nobler  life  in  store;  but  pardon  only  as 
allied  to  and  involved  in  the  reception  of  the  divine 
power,  which  can  alone  guarantee  his  communion  hence- 
forth with  God.  "  According  to  the  multitude  of  Thy 
tender  mercies  blot  out  my  transgressions," — that  is 
merely  the  prelude,  but  the  indispensable  prelude,  to 
the  further  appeal :  "  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God ; 
and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me."  ^  The  former 
prayer  has  in  reality  no  meaning  apart  from  the  latter. 
It  could  not  be  answered,  nor  even  offered,  without  it. 
He  whose  heart  has  learned  the  need  of  forgiveness 
has  in  the  very  act  learned  also  the  need  of  cleansing. 
Nothing  could  be  more  preposterous  than  to  suppose 
that  God   could   forgive  the   misdeeds  of  any  man   who 

^  Ps.  li.  I,  10. 


2  20  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

yet  remained  of  the  same  temper  and  attitude  toward 
Himself  out  of  which  the  misdeeds  grew.  If  there  be 
forgiveness,  it  must  be  bound  up  with  a  radical  change 
of  soul  in  him  to  whom  it  is  accorded.  And  both  these 
ethical  demands  are  fulfilled  in  the  gift  which  Christ  has 
secured  by  His  work  and  conveys  by  His  Spirit.  What 
does  the  believer  find  in  Christ  ?  He  sees  in  Him  One 
who,  being  the  Son  of  God,  has  identified  Himself  with 
humanity  and  presented  to  God  in  its  name  the  offering 
of  a  perfect  human  will,  and  who,  being  raised  from  the 
dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  has  all  power  to  confer 
upon  and  realise  in  man  His  own  triumphant  life  of 
sonship.  But  he  sees  also  that  this  power  was  obtained 
by  Christ,  not  merely  by  His  becoming  man,  but  by  His 
submission  to  the  sorrowful  conditions  of  His  intercourse 
with  sinners.  He  sees  in  the  suffering  of  Christ  as 
the  incarnate  Son  something  unique  and  apart  from  all 
other  suffering  of  man,  because  Christ  was  as  man 
fulfilling  a  function  which  none  other  could  discharge, 
in  obtaining  for  humanity  the  gift  of  a  new  life.  And 
just  as  he  finds  in  Christ  alone,  on  the  ground  of  what 
He  was  on  earth  and  is  now,  this  new  life,  this  right 
spirit  for  which  the  psalmist  prayed,  so  in  Christ  alone, 
on  the  ground  of  what  He  was  and  suffered,  he  finds 
pardon.  The  blotting  out  of  his  transgressions  is  as 
really  conditioned  by  Christ's  sacrifice  of  Himself,  as  is 
the  communication  of  the  spirit  of  sonship  and  his 
re-established  fellowship  with  the  Father.  The  guilt 
which  previously  oppressed  him  is  not  charmed  away 
as  an  evil  dream  that  Christ  has  dispelled, — it  remains 
the  most  awful  of  realities,  and  made  more  real  to  him 
by  his  vision  of  Christ ;   but  it  is   no   longer  his,  because 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  221 

he  is  in  Christ,  who  had  to  bear  the  sin  of  the  old  nature 
ere  He  could  mediate  the  new  to  mankind. 

This  sense  of  guilt  as  a  real  thing,  and  as  creating 
a  gulf  between  the  soul  and  God,  sets  forth  on  the  sub- 
jective side  precisely  the  same  fact  as  the  Scriptures 
portray  on  the  objective  or  divine  side,  when  they  speak 
of  the  wrath  or  condemnation  of  God  directed  against 
sin.  "  He  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life, 
but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him."  "  There  is 
therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in 
Christ  Jesus."  ^  These  two  terms,  wrath  and  condemna- 
tion, are  practically  synonymous ;  they  express  the 
intense  antagonism  of  God  to  all  unrighteousness  of 
men,  and  the  penalty  which  that  antagonism  and  dis- 
pleasure will  inflict  on  the  impenitent.  "  God  com- 
mendeth  His  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet 
sinners,  Christ  died  for  us.  Much  more  then,  being  now 
justified  by  His  blood,  shall  we  be  saved  from  wrath 
through  Him,"  ^  i.e.  saved  from  God's  final  judgment, 
when  His  condemnation  now  resting  on  sin  shall  express 
itself  in  punishment.  What,  then,  is  implied,  as  regards 
God  Himself,  in  this  condemnation  which  He  passes  on 
sinners  ?  Does  it  represent  an  actual  alienation  on  His 
part,  or  only  a  severance  on  ours  ?  Bishop  Westcott 
says  :  "  Such  phrases  as  *  propitiating  God  '  and  '  God 
being  reconciled '  are  foreign  to  the  language  of  the  New 
Testament.  Man  is  reconciled  (2  Cor.  v.  1 8  ff. ;  Rom. 
V.  I  o  f.).  There  is  a  propitiation  in  the  matter  of  the  sin 
or  of  the  sinner.  The  love  of  God  is  the  same  throughout ; 
but  He  *  cannot,'  in  virtue  of  His  very  nature,  welcome 
the    impenitent    and    sinful :    and    more    than    this.    He 

^  John  iii.  36 ;  Rom.  viii.  i.  ^  Rom.  v.  8,  9. 


2  22  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

*  cannot '  treat  sin  as  if  it  were  not  sin.  This  being  so, 
the  l\aafi6<;,  when  it  is  applied  to  the  sinner,  so  to  speak, 
neutralises  the  sin."  -^  Now,  it  is  quite  true  that  the  New 
Testament  does  not  speak  of  the  reconciliation  of  God 
to  man  as  it  speaks  of  the  reconciliation  of  man  to  God  ; 
but  it  makes  it  perfectly  plain  that  there  is  a  barrier  on 
God's  side,  which  prevents  the  forthgoing  of  the  divine 
forgiveness  towards  the  sinner,  and  that  that  barrier  is 
only  removed  through  the  sinner's  identification  of  him- 
self with  Him,  whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a  pro- 
pitiation through  faith  in  His  blood.^  Sin,  Paul  argues, 
cannot  simply  be  passed  over ;  it  needs  a  propitiation, 
in  order  to  show  forth  and  to  vindicate  the  absolute 
righteousness  of  God.  That  righteousness  is  no  abstract 
law ;  it  is  His  own  character.  He  had,  indeed,  passed 
by  sins  of  former  times ;  but  that  long  forbearance  on 
the  part  of  God  had  in  view  this  signal  exhibition  of  His 
righteousness  in  the  gift  and  death  of  His  Son,  whereby 
He  could  be  at  once  righteous  Himself,  and  accept  as 
righteous  him  that  hath  faith  in  Jesus.  This  redemptive 
process  is  God's  own  act.  The  propitiation  which  His 
character  demands,  it  also  provides.  Nor  do  the  demand 
and  its  satisfaction  spring  from  two  opposite  principles 
within  Him — His  justice  and  His  mercy.  His  love  is  not 
something  apart  from   His  righteousness,  which  prevails 

*  Epistles  of  St.  John,  p.  S5. 

^  Rom.  iii.  24-26.  Whether  we  take  IXaar-qpiov  as  a  noun  ("a  propitiatory 
victim  ")  or  as  a  neuter  adjective,  signifying  a  means  of  propitiation,  the  sense 
remains  the  same.  The  old  interpretation,  whicli  regarded  it  not  as  the  sin- 
offering,  but  (following  the  Septuagint  usage)  as  the  mercy-seat,  is  now  generally 
given  up  as  alien  to  Paul's  method  of  thought  ;  rvV/.  Bruce,  .S7.  PaiiFs  Comcp- 
Hon  of  Christianity,  p,  16S.  But,  even  on  this  rendering,  the  fundamental 
idea  which  underlies  the  word  must  be  that  of  propitiation.  International 
Crit.  Conini.  on  Romans,  p.  91. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  223 

upon  it  to  assume  a  new  attitude  towards  men  :  it  is  but 
one  manifestation  of  it — the  form  which  it  takes  in  order 
to  fulfil  itself  in  God's  relation  to  a  sinful  humanity.  As 
Dr.  Sanday  well  expresses  it :  "  That  which  seems  to  us, 
and  which  really  is  an  act  of  mercy,  is  the  direct  outcome 
of  the  '  righteousness,'  which  is  a  wider  and  more 
adequate  name  than  justice.  It  is  the  essential  right- 
eousness of  God  which  impels  Him  to  set  in  motion  that 
sequence  of  events  in  the  sphere  above  and  in  the  sphere 
below  which  leads  to  the  free  forgiveness  of  the  believer, 
and  starts  him  on  his  way  with  a  clean  page  to  his 
record."  ^  Yet  this  propitiation  only  avails  for  the 
sinner  through  his  faith,  which  makes  it  his  own  before 
God.  It  is  obvious,  then,  how  profoundly  spiritual  is 
the  entire  idea  of  reconciliation  which  the  apostle  here 
expounds. 

The  same  idea  is  contained  in  2  Cor.  v.  1 4  ff. :  "  The 
love  of  Christ  constraineth  us ;  because  we  have  formed 
this  judgment,  One  died  for  all,  therefore  all  died ;  and 
He  died  for  all,  that  they  which  live  should  no  longer 
live  unto  themselves,  but  unto  Him  who  died  for  them 
and  rose  again."  Much  has  been  made  of  the  fact  that 
the  word  translated  "  for "  is  uTrep,  on  behalf  of,  not 
avTi^  instead  of.  And  certainly  these  words  express  no 
mere  substitution  of  Christ  for  us ;  for  the  real  value  of 
that  death  depends  on  the  way  in  which  men  relate 
themselves  to  it,  by  reckoning  it  as  their  own,  and  living 
no  longer  unto  themselves,  but  unto  Him  that  died  for 
them  and  rose  again.  But  the  entire  argument  of  the 
passage  implies  that  the  death  of  Christ  has  in  itself  an 
objective  power  as  regards  man's  redemption  :  "  God  was 

^  International  Crit,  Comrn.  on  Romans^  p-  Qi- 


2  24  ^^^  Objective  Element  in  the  [Leci. 

in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself."  That 
reconciliation  is  in  a  deep  sense  an  accomplished  fact ; 
not  on  the  human  side,  however,  for  the  apostle  proceeds : 
"  We  beseech  you  on  behalf  of  Christ,  be  ye  reconciled 
to  God."  ^  Notwithstanding  the  death  of  Christ  for  us, 
the  antagonism  of  man  towards  God  remains,  until  he 
personally  surrenders  himself  to  the  Risen  One,  in  whose 
death  he  is  dead  to  sin,  in  whose  life  he  lives  to  right- 
eousness. Hence  the  reconciliation  of  the  world  to 
Himself,  which  God  has  already  wrought  out  in  Christ, 
can  refer  to  nothing  but  God's  own  attitude  towards 
the  world — an  attitude  rendered  possible  only  by  the 
taking  away  of  that  which  prevented  His  full  fatherly 
relation  to  mankind  ;  ^  and  it  is  on  the  ground  of  this 
divine  reconciliation  that  Paul  pleads  for  the  responsive 
change  in  men.  But  to  speak  thus  is  wholly  to  mis- 
represent Paul's  thought,  if  we  do  not  remember  that  it 
is  God  Himself  who  is  the  author  of  the  reconciliation. 
This  is  doubtless  the  reason  why  the  New  Testament 
always  speaks  of  a  propitiation  for  sins,  never  of  a  pro- 
pitiation offered  to  God,  because  that  would  convey  the 
false  and  debasing  idea  that  He  had  been  reluctantly 
won  to  mercy.  It  is  the  mercy  that  is  the  source  of  the 
propitiation,  not  the  propitiation  of  the  mercy.  When 
we  realise  this  we  see  at  once  how  inadequate  the  term 
propitiation  is,  with  its  suggestion  of  external  relations. 
It  may  easily  be  abused.  It  does  not  mean  that  God 
is  persuaded  to  gracious  thoughts  towards  sinners  by 
the  sacrifice  which  Another  offers   to   Him.      It  does  not 


^  Vers.  18,  20. 

"  On  the  relation  of  Fntherhood  to  Atonement,  see  Dr.  T.  J.  Crawford's 
Fatherhood  of  God ^  pp.  66-75. 


vr.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  225 

mean  that  His  condemnation  of  them  is  removed  by 
simple  virtue  of  that  sacrifice,  and  apart  from  their 
appropriation  of  it.  It  does  mean  that  God's  condemna- 
[  tion  of  a  sinful  race  is  expressed  in  the  death  of  Christ, 
who  died  and  rose  again  as  its  representative,  so  that  the 
riches  of  God's  fatherly  heart  might  through  Him  descend 
upon  it  in  forgiveness  and  renewal. 

Our  whole  conception  of  this  reconciliation  becomes 
vitiated  if  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  this  propitiation 
has  its  motive  and  origin  in  God  Himself.  But  this  is 
just  what  is  too  apt  to  happen  when  we  strive  to  inter- 
pret it  by  detailed  analogies  drawn  from  human  experi- 
ence. Few  who  have  written  on  the  atonement  have 
been  more  keenly  aware  than  Dr.  Mozley  of  the  transcend- 
ent and  mysterious  element  in  it,  or  have  shown  more 
forcibly  the  necessity  of  viewing  the  doctrine  in  its  proper 
setting,  as  one  factor  in  God's  redemption  of  men.^  Yet, 
in  endeavouring  to  bring  out  the  rational,  moral  value 
before  God  of  Christ's  sacrifice  on  our  behalf,  he  writes 
thus :  "  Its  effect  proceeds,  not  from  the  substitution  of 
one  person  for  another  in  punishment,  but  from  the 
influence  of  one  person  upon  another  for  mercy — a  medi- 
ator upon  one  who  is  mediated  with.  Let  us  see  what 
it  is  which  a  man  really  means  when  he  offers  to  sub- 
stitute himself  for  another  in  undergoing  punishment. 
He  cannot  possibly  mean  to  fulfil  the  element  of  justice 
literally.  What  he  wants  to  do  is  to  stimulate  the  element 
of  mercy   in   the  judge.   .   .  .   How  is   this   mercy  to  be 

1  Nothing,  e.g.^  could  be  finer  or  truer  than  this  :  "Justice  is  a  fragment, 
mercy  is  a  fragment,  mediation  is  a  fragment ;  justice,  mercy,  mediation  as  a 
reason  of  mercy — all  three  ;  what,  indeed,  are  they  but  great  vistas  and  open- 
ings into  an  invisible  world  in  which  is  the  point  of  view  which  brings  them 
all  together?" — University  Sermons,  p.  177. 

15 


2  26  The  Objective  Ele^nent  in  the  [Lect. 

gained,  enlisted  on  the  side  you  want  ?  By  suffering 
yourself.  You  thereby  soften  the  heart  of  the  judge. 
The  judge  only  accepts  the  act  as  a  stimulant  to  mercy. 
.  .  .  Let  anyone  have  exposed  himself  to  the  appetite 
for  punishment  in  our  nature,"  i.e.  the  appetite  which  is 
the  characteristic  of  justice  in  relation  to  evil,  "  and  it  is 
undoubtedly  the  case,  however  we  may  account  for  it, 
that  the  real  suffering  of  another  for  him,  of  a  good 
person  for  a  guilty  one,  will  mollify  the  appetite  for 
punishment  which  was  possibly  up  to  that  time  in  full 
possession  of  our  minds ;  and  this  kind  of  satisfaction  to 
justice  and  appeasing  of  it  is  involved  in  the  Scriptural 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement."  ^ 

It  seems  to  me  extremely  doubtful  whether  this  is 
involved  in  the  atonement,  and  assuredly  whatever  ele- 
ment of  truth  it  contains  is  more  than  nullified  by  the 
false  suggestions  which  Dr.  Mozley's  illustration  inevit- 
ably conveys.  Nothing  could  be  more  misleading  than 
to  talk  of  Christ's  sacrifice  producing  any  such  effect 
upon  God  as  is  implied  in  the  terms,  "  stimulating  the 
element  of  mercy  "  or  "  softening  the  heart  of  the  judge." 
That  sacrifice  is  the  pi'oduct  of  God's  love,  not  its  creator  ; 
it  is  love's  expression,  the  means  by  which  the  divine 
love  secures  a  place  for  itself  within  a  sinful  humanity, 
and  the  power  of  reconciling  and  renewing  it.  True, 
Christ  is  a  mediator  between  God  and  us,  but  not  in  the 
sense  of  prevailing  upon  the  Father  to  treat  us  otherwise 
than  He  desires  to  do.  He  is  mediator,  because  the  work 
of  redemption  could  only  be  carried  through  /';/  Jiumanity ; 
that  is,  by  One  who  shared  the  nature  of  those  whom  it 
was  the  Father's   purpose  to  save.      All  that  He  endured 

^  Mozley,  University  Sermons,  pp.  l68,  169,  175. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  227 

for  us  He  endured  according  to  the  Father's  will,  who 
"  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son."  Nay,  though  Christ  is  mediator,  His  work  as 
such  is  not  that  of  a  third  person  interceding  with  an 
unwilling  or  unconcerned  judge  for  a  guilty  mankind ;  it 
is  the  work,  achieved  in  the  sphere  of  humanity,  of  the 
Son  who  is  eternally  one  with  the  Father  in  the  unity  of 
the  Godhead,  and  who,  "  in  submitting  to  Another,  sub- 
mits also  to  Himself."  Therefore  the  divine  love  not 
only  provides  the  sacrifice,  but  actually  offers  it.  From 
first  to  last  it  is  the  act  of  God's  free  grace.  And,  finally, 
the  relation  in  which  Christ  stands  to  men  is  no  such 
incidental  one  as  that  between  the  voluntary  sufferer  and 
the  criminal.  All  such  examples  fail,  because  the  essen- 
tial point  is  left  out — the  identification  of  Christ  with  the 
whole  race.  He  who  died  for  men  is  He  through  whom 
they  and  all  created  things  have  had  their  being,  and 
who,  as  incarnate,  can,  because  of  His  connection  with 
organic  humanity,  rightly  act  as  its  representative.  Only 
One  who  as  divine  has  the  power  to  impart  to  human 
souls  a  renewed  life,  could  suffer  in  their  name  God's 
condemnation  of  their  sin.  It  is  Christ's  oneness  with 
the  race,  the  universality  of  His  humanity,  which  makes 
possible  both  the  tasting  of  death  for  them  and  the 
mediating  of  life  to  them.  To  this  oneness  with  those 
for  whom  He  suffers,  there  is  and  can  be  in  the  moral 
relations  of  men  to  each  other  no  parallel.  He  can  be 
to  all  of  them  what  none  of  them  can  be  to  another. 
There  are  many  aspects  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and 
these  of  essential  moment,  which  find  their  interpretation 
in  human  self-sacrifice.  To  show  how  it  is  correlated  to 
the  deepest  facts  of  our  daily  life  and  our  spiritual  expe- 


228  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lcct. 

rience  is  an  immense  service.  But  on  the  objective  side 
that  sacrifice  is  unique,  because  He  is  unique  ;  and  human 
illustrations  of  it  import  an  externality  into  a  relation 
which  is  supremely  spiritual,  and  too  often  but  darken 
and  perplex  the  truth  they  are  intended  to  illuminate. 

II.  The  unanimous  testimony  of  the  apostles  is,  that 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ  as  the  ground  of  our  forgiveness 
centres  itself  in  His  death.  It  is  needless  to  quote  pas- 
sages. This  idea  is  fundamental  and  pervasive.  We 
have  not  only  the  direct  witness  of  the  apostles  Peter 
and  John,  and  of  the  author  of  "  Hebrews,"  who,  though 
not  an  apostle,  was  an  apostolic  man  and  reflected  the 
view  of  the  apostolic  circle ;  ^  but  we  have,  above  all,  the 
distinct  declaration  of  Paul,  who  has  so  emphasised  and 
elaborated  this  thought  that  it  is  supposed  by  many 
to  be  his  peculiar  creation,  that  on  this  point  he  was  but 
repeating  and  unfolding  the  faith  of  the  first  disciples 
and  of  the  whole  Church.^ 


1  I  Pet.  ii.  20-24,  iii-  iS;  cf.  i.  18,  19:  i  John  i.  7;  cf.  ii.  2,  iv.  10: 
Heb.  ix.  12,  26.  The  importance  of  this  conception  for  the  writers  of  the 
Epistles  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  number  of  times  in  which  it  is  directly 
stated,  but  by  the  fact  that  it  forms  the  presupposition  on  which  they  argue  and 
appeal,  and  that  its  displacement  would  destroy  the  unity  and  coherence  of 
their  teaching.  An  Epistle  was  addressed  to  those  who  already  accepted  the 
central  verities  of  the  faith,  and  who  in  their  Christian  assemblies  were  per- 
petually hearing  them  rehearsed  and  expounded.  Consequently,  it  often 
dwells  far  more  on  the  implications  of  Christian  doctrine  for  belief  or  prac- 
tice than  on  the  doctrine  itself.  Some  have  contended  that,  because  Peter 
and  John  (i  Pet.  ii.  20-24,  iii-  i7j  18;  i  John  iii.  16)  introduce  references 
to  Christ's  death  in  connection  with  the  duly  incumbent  upon  all  of  patient 
endurance  and  self-sacrifice,  they  mean  to  represent  it  only  as  the  supreme 
example  of  the  same  spirit.  But  the  whole  context,  and  sometimes  the  very 
words  employed  to  describe  Christ's  death,  show  that  they  do  not  appeal  to 
it  simply  as  an  example,  but  as  a  nniqiie  motive,  as  an  act  which  is  fitted  to 
inspire  human  self-sacrifice,  just  because  it  so  utterly  transcends  it  and  sup- 
plies it  with  a  pledge  of  victory.     See  Dale,  Atonement,  chaps,  iv.  and  v. 

2  J  Cor.  XV.  3,  u, 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  229 

There  are  not  a  few  who  regard  the  association  of 
Christ's  atonement  specially  with  His  death  as  due  to  a 
certain  illusion  or  blurring  of  perspective,  natural  to 
the  apostles  on  account  of  their  individual  experience 
and  their  Jewish  traditions.  The  illusion,  it  is  said,  is 
easily  explained.  The  disciples  were  possessed  from  the 
first  by  the  prevalent  conception  of  a  kingly  and  trium- 
phant Messiah.  The  obstinacy  with  which  they  clung 
to  this,  and  the  persistence  with  which  Jesus  strove  to 
undermine  it,  form  one  of  the  tragic  and  pathetic 
elements  in  the  Gospel  story.  They  lived  in  a  constant 
state  of  mingled  expectation  and  perplexity.  Disap- 
pointed in  their  hopes  at  every  turn,  they  yet  became 
more  deeply  persuaded,  as  the  months  wore  on,  that  He 
whose  conduct  so  tried  their  faith  was  indeed  the  pro- 
mised Messiah.  But  they  could  attach  no  meaning 
to  His  most  solemn  allusions  to  His  coming  death. 
Till  the  end,  even  when  all  seemed  lost,  they  appear  to 
have  been  buoyed  up  by  a  half-conscious  feeling  that, 
somehow,  the  problem  would  yet  be  solved  in  their  way. 
Then  came  the  final  disaster,  obvious  to  all — shameful, 
irreversible.  They  were  broken  men ;  the  past  lay  in 
ruins.  The  "  longing,  lingering  look  behind,"  to  which 
the  two  disciples  on  the  way  to  Emmaus  gave  expres- 
sion, was  all  that  remained  to  them  of  that  unforgetable 
time :  "  We  trusted  it  had  been  He."  Then  suddenly 
the  great  transformation.  He  stood  before  them — Him- 
self, not  another — with  the  marks  of  that  awful  Cross 
upon  Him  still,  but  changed,  victorious.  God  had  vin- 
dicated Him.  His  resurrection.  His  ascension,  proved 
that  He  was  God's  Messiah,  after  all.  But  their  old  idea 
of  the   Messiah  was  gone.      It  might  have  survived   His 


230  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

lowly  life,  His  poverty,  His  homelessncss,  even  the  despite 
with  which  men  treated  Him :  He  might  have  passed 
through  all  these,  and  yet  triumphed.  But  one  thing 
they  could  not  get  over — the  Cross.  Their  old  hope 
was  buried  in  His  grave.  It  rose  purified,  spiritualised. 
But  what  could  they  say  of  that  death  by  crucifixion,  so 
degrading  in  the  eyes  of  men,  so  peculiarly  hateful  to 
Jews,  and  only  inflicted  even  by  Gentiles  on  slaves  and 
the  lowest  criminals  ?  There  it  stood,  barring  the  way 
to  the  acceptance  of  Jesus'  Messiahship,  the  one  great 
(T/cdvSaXov  ^  to  Jewish  hearts.  But  God's  verdict  was 
just  the  opposite  of  man's.  "  This  Jesus,  whom  jye 
crucified,  whom  God  raised."  ^  The  resurrection  did  not 
come  in  spite  of  the  crucifixion,  but  because  of  it.  In 
the  very  awfulness  and  shamefulness  of  the  death  con- 
sisted its  eternal  power  and  value.  Nay,  had  not  Jesus, 
when  He  appeared  to  the  disciples,  showed  them  His 
pierced  hands  and  feet,  glorying  in  the  a-Ti^fiara  which 
man  thought  of  with  contempt?  They  felt  that  here 
lay  the  key  of  the  Messianic  deliverance.  The  great 
"  scandal  "  became  the  great  "  mystery,"  the  great  secret 
of  rejoicing. 

But  this  concentration  of  their  thought  on  the  dying 
Christ  was,  it  is  argued,  very  much  the  result  of  a 
reaction  from  their  previous  condition  of  mind.  Just 
because  they  could  not  bear  to  think  of  death  as  asso- 
ciated with  the  Messiah,  they  came  to  make  too  much  of 
it  when  it  had  to  be  taken  into  account,  with  all  the 
attendant  horrors  of  a  criminal  execution  upon  a  cross. 
It  lost  its  proper  place  in  relation  to  Christ's  life,  and 
stood  out  very  much  as  a  sheer,  isolated  fact,  which  they 

1  I  Cor.  i.  23.  2  ^cts  iv.  10. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ:  231 

interpreted  too  exclusively  by  ideas  drawn  from  the 
sacrificial  usages  of  the  Jewish  ritual.  But  Christ's 
whole  work  as  Redeemer  was  of  a  piece.  As  we  cannot 
separate  His  divine  from  His  human  nature,  and  say, 
"  This  He  did  as  man,  this  as  the  Son  of  God,"  so  we 
cannot  separate  His  death  from  His  life,  and  say  that 
His  life  was  a  revelation  of  the  love  and  pity  of  the 
Father,  and  His  death  alone  the  ground  of  forgiveness 
and  remission  of  sin.  Both  have  to  be  taken  together, 
and  every  blessing  of  His  salvation  is  related  to  both. 
His  work  from  first  to  last  has  an  objective  meaning  for 
our  pardon  and  renewal.  In  Him  alone  we  have  life 
eternal ;  but  that  life  could  not  have  been  His  to 
impart  had  He  not  passed  through  a  complete  human 
life,  and  identified  Himself  with  humanity,  enduring  as 
the  Sinless  One  the  condemnation  of  its  sinfulness,  alike 
in  His  daily  fellowship  with  sinners  as  in  the  bitterness 
of  death  inflicted  by  their  hands.  It  was  through  His 
whole  humiliation  that  He  redeemed  us,  not  by  His 
Incarnation  merely,  but  by  His  Incarnation  into  a  sinful 
race  as  born  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  in  the 
likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  subject  in  His  earthly  expe- 
rience to  all  that  "  is  unblessed  in  man's  unredeemed 
state."  Neither  His  life  nor  His  death  was  like  that  of 
other  men.  The  fact  that  the  New  Testament  does  not 
connect  Christ's  endurance  of  hunger,  thirst,  weariness, 
or  poverty,  or  any  of  the  sufferings  of  His  ministry,  with 
the  remission  of  sins,^  as  it  connects  His  actual  death,  is, 
we  are  told,  partly  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  natural 
one-sidedness  of  view  into  which  the  apostles  fell ;  but 
it  is  also  the  safeguarding  of  the  great  truth  that  the 

^  See  Dale,  A/oneinent,  p.  69. 


232  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

work  of  Christ  in  redemption  had  no  validity  till  it  was 
fi7nshed,  that  only  in  death  was  that  life  of  sacrifice 
completed,  and  only  through  death  could  it  triumph  and 
communicate  its  pardoning  and  renewing  power.  Still 
further,  it  was  in  His  death  that  the  pressure  of  sin  bore 
upon  Him  with  its  full  weight.  That  burden  was  borne 
by  Him  through  all  His  intercourse  with  men  ;  in  His 
intense  sympathy  with  the  suffering  and  diseased,  so 
that,  in  every  cure  He  wrought,  virtue  went  out  of  Him ; 
in  the  pain  that  He  felt  at  the  malice  and  antagonism 
which  His  goodness  awaked,  and  the  utter  shame  of 
which  in  humanity  only  He,  the  Son  of  Man,  could  feel. 
But  every  element  of  sorrow  was  gathered  up  and  inten- 
sified in  the  Cross — hate,  treachery,  desertion ;  and  in 
that  unspeakable  loneliness  the  Sinless  made  Himself 
one  with  the  sinful  in  the  utmost  agony  of  death,  as  He 
had  already  made  their  suffering  life  His  own.  So, 
having  become  one  with  them  in  their  condemnation. 
He  acquired  the  right  to  make  them  one  with  Him  in 
His  triumph,  to  deliver  them  from  the  curse  and  the 
bondage  of  sin,  and  impart  to  them  the  glorious  liberty 
of  the  children  of  God. 

That  there  is  much  truth  in  this  insistence,  as 
regards  the  atonement,  on  the  connection  between  the 
life  and  the  death  of  Jesus,  we  shall  see  later.  But  the 
great  objection  to  this  interpretation  is,  that  it  docs  not 
do  justice  to  the  words  and  attitude  of  Christ  Himself. 
If  one  carefully  examines  the  chronology  of  the  Gospels, 
he  will  probably  be  surprised  to  find  how  frequently 
during  the  last  six  months  Christ  refers  to  His  death. 
It  is  no  sufficient  explanation  to  say  that  He  was 
endeavouring    to    correct    the    misapprehensions   of    the 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  233 

disciples,  and  to  dispel  their  hopes  of  an  earthly  Mes- 
sianic kingdom.  His  language  had  no  such  effect,  and, 
we  may  say,  could  not  have  it.  Not  merely  did  it 
appear  to  them  the  flattest  contradiction  of  what  they 
already  believed  regarding  Him,  but  it  did  not  corre- 
spond with  other  facts  which  He  was  always  insisting 
on.  For,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  Lecture,^  He 
did  not  speak  of  His  death  in  the  tone  of  one  who 
viewed  it  as  a  mere  disaster  and  separation.  At  every 
step  He  seemed  to  bind  them  faster  to  Himself,  and  to 
impress  upon  them  that  their  union  with  Him  would  be 
continuous  and  abiding.  This  was  not  only  involved  in 
His  declaration  that  the  death  would  be  followed  by  a 
resurrection ;  it  was  the  underlying  spirit  of  all  His 
teaching  as  to  His  personal  indispensableness  for  the 
realisation  of  the  new  kingdom.  His  words  neither 
helped  to  prepare  them  for  the  catastrophe,  nor  saved 
them  from  panic  when  the  blow  fell.  Why,  then,  did 
He  persist  in  His  prophecy  ?  Not  for  any  purpose 
which  could  be  fulfilled  before  the  resurrection,  but  to 
lead  their  minds  back,  when  His  triumph  over  death  was 
accomplished,  to  the  paramount  significance  of  that 
death,  to  the  emphasis  zvhicJi  He  Himself  placed  upon  it 
in  the  achievement  of  redemption. 

And  this  view  is  corroborated  by  the  effect  which  the 
anticipation  of  the  death  had  upon  Himself.  There  are 
no  passages  in  the  Gospels  which  bear  a  stronger  stamp 
of  genuineness  than  those  which  relate  His  prophecies 
of  the  end.  Had  the  disciples  been  fancifully  reading 
back  from  the  lessons  of  subsequent  events,  they  might 
have  attributed  to  Christ  some  sayings   about   His  death, 

^  Lect.  III.  pp.  132-4. 


234  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

but  they  would  not  have  dwelt  on  their  own  blindness  to 
His  meaning  at  the  time.  Yet  that  is  the  contrast  that 
pervades  the  entire  record,  and  it  has  verisimilitude  on 
the  face  of  it — the  contrast  between  Christ's  view  and 
theirs,  their  sheer  inability  to  attach  any  real  thought  to 
what  not  only  absorbed  but  oppressed  Him.  It  hung 
over  His  spirit  like  a  great  cloud  of  sorrow.  He  had 
foreseen  it  from  the  beginning;^  but  it  is  notable  that 
the  first  plain  intimation  of  it  to  the  Twelve  followed 
immediately  upon  the  confession  of  His  Messiahship,^  as 
if  He  must  make  the  announcement  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment,  in  order  that  they  might  realise  after- 
wards that  His  coming  greatness  and  glory  were  never 
dissociated  in  His  mind  from  the  mysterious  efficacy  of 
His  death,  and  that  His  acknowledgment  of  the  former 
involved  the  latter.  And  the  stern  impatience  with 
which  He  rebuked  Peter  showed  how  intolerable  it  was 
to  Him  that  anyone  should  even  unwittingly  disparage 
the  dread  necessity.  At  times  the  thought  so  burdened 
Him  that,  as  He  journeyed,  it  quickened  His  steps,  and 
withdrew  Him  from  the  disciples  in  a  depressed  self- 
communing.  "  He  went  before  them,  and  they  that 
followed  were  afraid."  ^  They  were  overawed  by  His 
ominous  self-absorption.  At  last  He  turned  to  speak : 
it  was  of  the  one  great  ordeal  through  which  He  must 
pass.  When  on  the  Tuesday  before  the  crucifixion  He 
cried,  "  Now  is  My  soul  troubled,  and  what  shall  I 
say  ?  Father,  save  Me  from  this  hour.  But  for  this 
cause  came   I   unto  this  hour,"  *  He  was   but  repeating 

*  See  ante^  pp.  99-106. 

2  Matt.  xvi.  13-2S  ;  Mark  viii.  27-3S  ;  Luke  ix.  18-27. 

3  Mark  x.  32  (R.V.).  ^]o\\\\  xii.  27. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  235 

what  He  had  said  months  before :  "  I  have  a  baptism  to 
be  baptized  with,  and  how  am  I  straitened  till  it  be 
accomplished  !  "  ^  In  both  cases  there  is  visible  the  same 
strange  dread  of  a  fate  which  yet  He  welcomed  as 
necessary — the  same  longing,  so  natural  and  human, 
that  the  dark  and  inevitable  hour  were  over.  It  was 
His  foretaste  of  the  Agony. 

Nothing  could  be  more  hopelessly  blind  and  banal 
than  the  notion  that  the  horror  which  smote  Christ's 
spirit  in  Gethsemane  sprang  from  the  thought  of  the 
physical  torture  of  the  Cross.  Picture  that  torture  in 
its  extremest  form, — the  thirst,  the  fever  of  the  blood, 
the  throbbing  pain :  does  that  in  the  remotest  degree 
help  us  to  understand  the  scene  in  the  Garden  ?  He 
was  astounded,  struck  with  terror :  ^  "  My  soul  is  exceed- 
ing sorrowful,  even  unto  death."  Then  the  reiterated 
pleading,  the  wrestling,  the  half-despair.  They  who 
suppose  that  Christ's  being  was  thus  terror-stricken, 
shaken  to  its  centre,  by  the  anticipation  of  any  physical 
suffering,  attribute  to  Him  a  fatal  unmanliness.  He 
could  not  be  the  Lord  of  martyr  souls  if  His  own  heart 
quailed  under  a  trial  not  heavier  than  theirs.     The  whole 

^  Luke  xii.  50. 

2  Mark  xiv.  33.  The  word  ^KOafx^elaOai  (especially  here,  where  it  is 
conjoined  with  d8rifioue?i>)  conveys  the  idea  of  amazement  culminating  in 
consternation  (see  Morison,  Comm.  on  SL  Mark,  p.  399).  The  same 
thought  is  contained  in  the  word  dyuvia  {yevofxepos  iv  dywvlq.  iKTevearepov 
irpoarjvx^To,  Luke  xxii.  44).  The  meaning  is  not,  "intense  or  vehement 
prayer,"  but  "deadly  horror,"  i.e.  being  in  a  deadly  fear,  He  prayed  the 
more  earnestly.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the  genuineness  of  this 
passage  in  Luke  is  doubted.  Westcott  and  Hort  regard  it  as  a  "precious 
fragment" — inserted  by  a  scribe  of  the  second  century — of  the  evangelic 
tradition  locally  current  beside  the  canonical  Gospels.  In  that  case,  its  his- 
torical value  is  quite  as  high  as  if  it  formed  part  of  the  original  text.  Cf. 
Godet,  6V.  Luke,  in  he. 


236  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

story  of  the  Passion,  even  if  it  stood  alone,  is  a  protest 
against  such  a  view.  But  it  does  not  stand  alone :  the 
Agony  is  but  the  climax  of  the  oppression  which  had 
again  and  again  descended  upon  Him.  Will  anyone 
say  that  He  was  brooding  during  all  these  months 
on  the  bodily  tortures  before  Him?  It  was  the 
same  vision  throughout  that  darkened  His  spirit — 
that  death  which  held  in  Christ's  thought,  as  in 
that  of  the  apostles,  a  unique  place  in  the  work  of 
redemption. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  the  institution  of 
the  Holy  Supper,  and  the  words  used  by  Jesus  when  He 
gave  the  Sacramental  cup,  teach  the  saving  efficacy  of 
His  death.  Clouds  of  controversy  have  failed  to  obscure 
the  salient  facts.  The  omission  of  the  clause  "  unto 
the  remission  of  sins "  from  all  the  accounts  except 
Matthew's,^  even  from  that  of  Paul,  who  certainly  might 
be  supposed  to  have  every  reason  for  inserting  it,  unques- 
tionably throws  a  suspicion  on  its  historic  accuracy. 
But  the  idea  it  conveys  is  really  covered  by  the  well- 
attested  phrase  in  which  Christ  speaks  of  His  blood  as 
shed  for  others,  and  shed  for  them  as  the  source  and 
ground  of  a  covenant.  This  covenant  can  be  none 
other  than  the  new  one  referred  to  by  Jeremiah,^  which 
contained  the  blessings  of  inward  cleansing  and  full 
forgiveness ;  and  the  blood  in  which  it  is  founded  is  of 
necessity  sacrificial  blood.^  The  two  thoughts  suggested 
by  the  Covenant  and  the  Paschal  Lamb  together  imply 
the  truth  which  Matthew's  account  formally  expresses.'* 

^  Malt.  xxvi.  28.  "  Jer.  xxxi.  31. 

3  Cf.  Meyer,  St.  Matthew,  in  Ice. 

•*  Vid.  I'ruce,  A'hi^doni  of  Cod,  pp.  246-248. 


VI.]  Redeviptive  Work  of  Christ 


6/ 


No  other  interpretation  than  this  could  be  rationally 
assigned  to  the  Holy  Supper  by  the  apostles.  Christ 
had  taught  them  that  He  had  come,  not  to  destroy  but 
to  fulfil  the  Jewish  law,  that  every  detail  of  it  had  a 
spiritual  truth  which  would  abide.  How  could  they 
help  believing  that  the  ritual  of  sacrifice  would  find  a 
fulfilment,  and  that  that  fulfilment  took  place  in  the 
shedding  of  His  own  blood  ?  If  He  did  not  mean 
them  to  draw  this  inference,  then  it  must  be  said 
that  He  Himself  was  largely  responsible  for  the  mis- 
conception. 

I  am  not  inclined  to  place  much  emphasis  on  the 
possibility  of  instructions  given  by  Him  during  the  forty 
days  after  His  resurrection.^  If,  as  the  risen  One,  He 
expounded  to  the  apostles  the  full  significance  of  His 
death,  it  is  strange  that  they  did  not  afterwards  record 
His  words  as  the  final  authority  for  their  special  interpre- 
tation. And  it  is  at  least  worthy  of  note  that  there 
were  great  questions,  such  as  the  bearing  of  His  redemp- 
tion on  the  Gentile  nations,  and  the  anticipation  of  the 
end  of  the  world  as  near  at  hand,  on  which  we  might 
have  expected  Him  to  pronounce  beyond  the  possibility 
of  mistake,  yet  for  the  solution  of  which  He  largely  left 
them  to  the  teaching  of  experience  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Spirit.^  It  is  not  by  resorting  to  these  precarious 
suppositions,  but  by  making  clear  to  ourselves  the  in- 
dubitable facts,  in  Christ's  own  attitude  towards  His 
death,  and  the  horror  with  which  its  anticipation  filled 
Him,  and  in  the  observance  of  a  service  ^  which  inevit- 
ably gave   to    it   a    supreme   and   sacrificial  worth,  that 

1  See  Note  21,  p.  412.  2  ggg  ^^^^  24,  p.  416. 

3  On  the  perpetuity  of  the  Supper  as  an  institution,  vid.  anle,  p.  58,  n. 


238  The  Objective  Elcmc7it  in  the  [Lect. 

we  shall  find  the  adequate  vindication  of  the  apostolic 
testimony. 

God's  condemnation  of  sin,  which  fell  upon  Christ  on 
the  Cross,  consisted  in  this,  that  He  died  a  death  which  was 
not  His  own,  and  which  yet  in  a  sense  He  made  His  own 
by  His  voluntary  identification  of  Himself  with  sinners; 
so  that,  though  conscious  of  His  own  sinlessness.  He 
suffered  as  their  representative  the  penalty  of  God's  dis- 
pleasure at  human  sin,  and  acknowledged  it  to  be  just. 
Some  object  to  this  view,  on  the  ground  that  it  attributes 
to  Christ  a  double  consciousness  :  that  which  He  had  in 
His  own  proper  personality  as  the  Son  of  God  in  flesh, 
and  that  which  He  had  as  the  representative  of  mankind. 
But  it  is  precisely  this  double  consciousness  which  is  the 
essence  of  the  sacrifice.  It  was  the  offering  of  One  who, 
though  sinless,  suffered  in  the  place  of  the  sinful.  Just 
because  there  lay  deep  in  the  heart  of  Christ  through  all 
the  dreadful  ordeal  of  the  Cross  the  sense  of  His  personal 
sinlessness,  we  are  able  to  say,  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
words,  that  He  "  through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered  Him- 
self without  spot  to  God."  ^  The  obliteration  of  His 
individual  self-consciousness,  the  idea  that  He  regarded 
Himself  as  the  object  of  the  Father's  anger  on  the 
ground  of  sins  which  yet  He  had  never  committed,  and 
whose  punishment  He  was  only  enduring  that  He  might 
bear  it  away,  is  not  merely  in  itself  inconceivable  and 
monstrous,  but  it  impairs  the  whole  character  of  the 
atonement  which  He  made.  On  the  other  hand,  His 
consciousness  of  identification  with  a  sinful  humanity, 
and  of  the  condemnation  of  God  resting  upon  Him  as  its 
representative,  was  just  as  real.     It  has  been  argued  that, 

^  Heb,  ix.  14. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  239 

so  long  as  we  maintain  Christ's  personal  consciousness 
of  perfect  obedience  to  God,  this  condemnation  was  only 
the  vivid  mental  realisation  of  God's  wrath  against  sin 
to  which  Christ  inwardly  responded,  not  the  actual 
experience  of  it.  It  was  the  experience  of  the  divine 
displeasure  towards  a  race  of  which  He  had  freely 
chosen  to  become  one.  We  have  need  to  take  heed 
when  we  talk  of  the  pain  arising  from  the  sympathy  that 
makes  another's  woe  its  own,  as  if  it  were  but  a  senti- 
mental feeling.^  It  is  a  real  anguish ;  and,  in  Christ's 
case,  not  only  is  this  sympathy  carried  out  to  its  last 
intensity,  but  there  Is  more  than  sympathy, — there  is  a 
oneness  of  life  with  men.  In  virtue  of  His  Incarnation, 
which  has  no  parallel  In  human  experience.  What 
awful  agony  this  implied  when  He  submitted  to  a  death 
which  was  not  His  own,  but  the  death  of  sinners  with 
the  sting  of  sin  In  it,  it  is  not  possible  for  us  to  imagine. 
To  say  that  He  died  our  death  is  a  permissible  expres- 
sion, but  It  Is  not  Scriptural  ;  and  it  may  fatally  mislead. 
The  death  which  is  due  to  the  sinner  is  abiding  separa- 
tion from  God.  That  death  He  did  not  die,  but  averted 
from  us.  To  attempt  to  find  In  His  death  for  us  some 
exact  equivalent  to  the  condemnation  from  which  He 
redeems  the  sinner,  is  to  de-spiritualise  His  sacrifice.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  this  tendency  has  not  led  to  a  forced 
interpretation  of  the  cry  of  desolation  :  "  My  God,  My 
God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me  ?  "  ^  No  explanation 
of  it.  Indeed,  will  ever  suffice  which  attributes  it  merely 
to   the    obscuring   of   His    spiritual    vision    through    the 


^  Cf.   Prof.   Orr's  criticism  of  Dr.  Macleod  Campbell,   CImstian  View  of 
God  and  the  World,  p.  360. 

2  Matt,  xxvii.  46  :  Mark  xv.  34. 


240  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

extreme  tension  of  His  physical  and  mental  suffering, 
and  which  does  not  connect  it  with  His  identification  of 
Himself  with  sinners  in  their  condemnation.^  It  is  there 
that  the  secret  lay  of  this,  as  of  the  whole  tragedy  of  the 
Cross.  But,  whatever  else  that  cry  meant  for  Him,  it 
certainly  had  for  one  of  its  elements,  as  Canon  Gore  has 
said,  "  the  trial  of  the  righteous  man  forsaken. ^  The 
desolation,  the  loss  of  the  sense  of  God's  gracious 
presence,  though  He  bowed  to  it  as  a  just  judgment  on 
human  sin,  was  to  Him  unspeakably  awful,  just  because 
He  retained  His  own  integrity.  His  yearning  for  God's 
fellowship.  And  this  yearning  for  God,  "  My  God,"  is 
exactly  what  could  not  exist  in  the  case  of  the  sinner 
suffering  death  as  the  wages  of  sin.  So  impossible  is  it 
for  us  to  find  any  human  equation  for  the  experience 
through  which  Christ  passed  when  He  "  tasted  death  for 
every  man."  ^ 

in.  But  while  Christ's  death  possesses  this  central 
significance  as  the  ground  of  our  forgiveness,  yet  it 
possesses  it  only  because  of  its  relation  to  His  life 
Nothing  can  be  more  fatal,  or  more  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  the  New  Testament,  than  to  ascribe  this  virtue 
to  it  as  an  isolated  event,  and  to  assign  to  His  ministry 
a  merely  preparatory  and  subordinate  place.  It  is  no 
more  true  to  say  that  He  came  into  the  world  to  die, 
than  that  He  came  into  the  world  to  live.  The  former 
statement  is  destitute  of  spiritual  meaning,  unless  read 
in  the  full  light  of  what  is  involved  in  the  latter. 
The  purpose  of  His   Incarnation  was  to   introduce  into 

1  Cf.   Dale,  Atonement,  pp.   60-62,   470-474,   and    I'leface  to    7th   ed., 

pp.  40-44- 

2  Banipton  Lectures,  pp.  1 48,  149. 
8  See  Note  30,  p.  439. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  241 

the  race  a  new  life  of  sonship   to  the   Father ;  and  this 
voluntary  spirit  He  had  first  to  realise  in  His  own  person, 
through  all  the  stages  of  a  complete  human  experience 
from    birth   to   death.      His   absolute   submission   to    the 
will  of  God  in  the  lot  appointed   to  Him,  in  His  child- 
hood, in  the  daily  toil  of  His  silent  years  in  Nazareth,  in 
the  trials  of  His  public   ministry,  was  the  indispensable 
foundation  of  His  final  sacrifice :  it  was,  so  to  speak,  the 
acquiring  of  that  life  which  for  our  sakes   He  laid  down. 
His  death  came  to  Him,  as   Ritschl  puts  it,  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  His  vocation ;  it  befell  Him  in  His  conflict  with 
the  world's   evil.      In    the    New   Testament   it   is   never 
spoken  of  as  God's  act.     It  is  man's :  "  Whom  ye  cruci- 
fied,   whom    God    raised    up."  1     The    Father's    love    is 
shown  in  delivering  up   His   Son  for  our  salvation ;  and 
the  working  out  of  that  salvation  involved  Christ's  death, 
not  as  the  direct  visitation  of  God,  but  as  the  inevitable 
result  of  the  human  sin  that  surrounded   Him.     Yet  it 
was  not  simply  inflicted ;  it  was  voluntarily  undergone 
and  accepted  as  an  inherent  part  of  the  unique  vocation 
to  which  God  called  Him,  and  which   He  had   Himself 
chosen.      He  lived  out   His  stainless  life  of  humanity  as 
our  representative   before  the  Father,  and  though  as  a 
consequence    He  was  "  by  lawless    hands   crucified   and 
slain,"  yet  none  the  less  no  man  took  His  life  from  Him : 
He  laid  it  down  of  Himself.      For  the  work  which   He 
had  freely  undertaken  included  this  as  a  condition  of  its 
fulfilment. 

And    just    as    necessary    as    the    relation    in    which 
Christ's   death  stands   to   His  life  is   its   connection  with 

^  Acts   ii.  22-24.      Cf.  Gore,  Bainpton   Lectures,  p.   127,    and    p,    261, 
Note  37. 

16 


242  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

His  resurrection :  *  I  have  power  to  lay  down  My  life, 
and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again."  ^  The  surrender 
and  the  resumption  are  inseparable  parts  of  the  one  act 
of  redemption,  of  the  one  "  commandment  which  He 
received "  from  His  Father.  It  was  by  His  identifica- 
tion of  Himself  with  us  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  Cross  that 
He  acquired  the  right  to  take  His  life  again,  not  simply 
as  His  own,  but  as  the  mediator  of  it  to  the  sinful,  as 
the  first-born  among  many  brethren.  Therefore,  while 
His  death  is  the  ground  of  the  remission  of  sins,  it  is  so 
not  in  itself  merely,  but  as  the  death  of  Him  who  is  now 
the  living  One,  "  who  was  dead  and  is  alive  for  ever- 
more." If  Paul  determined  to  know  nothing  among  the 
Corinthian  disciples  "  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  cruci- 
fied," 2  that  was  not  because  the  Cross  constituted  the 
whole  Gospel,  but  because  it  was  the  central  mystery 
and  glory  of  the  Gospel ;  and  because  only  One,  who 
by  His  humiliation  and  death  had  taken  upon  Himself 
man's  burden,  could  be  God's  Messiah  to  deliver  and 
renew  him.  A  dead  Christ  would  have  been  no  Christ 
at  all.  He  redeems  us  not  simply  by  the  act  of  His 
death,  but  by  His  person,  by  His  total  work.^  Hence 
Paul,  in  speaking  of  the  justifying  faith  of  Abraham, 
declares,  "  It  was  reckoned  unto  him  for  righteousness. 
Now  it  was  not  written  for  his  sake  alone  that  it  was 
reckoned  unto  him,  but  for  our  sake  also,  unto  whom  it 
shall  be  reckoned,  who  believe  on  Him  that  raised  Jesus 
our  Lord  from  the  dead,  who  was  delivered  up  for  our 
trespasses,  and    was   raised   for  our  justification."  *      The 

^  John  X.  18.  =1  Cor.  ii.  2. 

^  See  Sanday  and  Headlam,  Inteniat.  Crit.  Comvi.  on  Romans,  p.  117. 

^  Rom.  iv.  22-25. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  243 

emphasis  here  laid  on  the  resurrection  of  Christ  implies 
far  more  than  that  it  is  the  ground  of  our  faith  in  the 
atoning  character  of  His  death.  In  that  case  it  would 
have  a  significance  merely  for  us^  as  the  proof  that  the 
death  had  an  availing  power  to  justify  us.  It  has  a 
meaning  relatively  to  Christ  Himself  and  the  efficacy  of 
His  sacrifice  on  the  Cross.  Without  the  resurrection  He 
would  not  have  taken  the  complete  manhood  into  God, 
and  therefore  would  have  been  unable  to  be  the  "  quick- 
ening spirit"  and  head  of  the  new  humanity.  But  if 
He  had  no  new  life  to  impart,  He  could  have  no  pardon 
to  bestow.  Hence  there  are  passages,  like  that  which  has 
been  quoted,  in  which  Paul  puts  the  resurrection  even 
before  the  death  of  Christ  as  the  cause  of  justification.^ 
This  variety  in  the  apostle's  expression  is  a  proof  how 
little  he  is  bound  even  to  what  may  be  regarded  as  his 
own  formula,  how  inevitably  he  keeps  himself  true  to 
the  facts  of  redemption  as  a  whole.  Christ's  death  is,  in 
truth,  but  one  stage  in  a  process.  It  is  embedded  in 
the  life,  the  earthly  life  before  it,  the  risen  and  ascended 
life  after  it ;  and  he  who  forgets  this,  and  divides  up  the 
essential  unity ,^  assigning  to  each  part  its  separate  virtue, 
will  only  fall  into  a  pedantic  scholasticism. 

When  Dr.  Dale  says,  "  That  the  remission  of  sins,  if 

^  Rom.  vi.  9,  10,  viii.  34.  This  point  is  emphasised  by  Schader,  Die 
Bedeiitnng  des  lebendigen  Christtis  fiir  die  Eechtfertigung  nach  Pauhis.  See 
the  reference  in  Sanday  and  Headlam,  I.e. 

^  This  unity  is  expressed  by  Dr.  Hort's  pregnant  aphorism,  *at  which 
many  will  start ' :  *'  Reconciliation  or  atonement  is  one  aspect  of  redemption, 
and  redemption  one  aspect  of  resurrection,  and  resurrection  one  aspect  of 
life"  {Hulsean  Lectures,  p.  210).  Dr.  Sanday's  comment  may  be  added 
(Romans,  p.  118):  "  All  definitions  of  great  doctrines  have  a  relative  rather 
than  an  absolute  value.  They  are  partial  symbols  of  ideas  which  the  human 
mind  cannot  grasp  in  their  entirety.  If  we  could  see  as  God  sees,  we  should 
doubtless  find  them  running  up  into  large  and  broad  laws  of  His  working." 


244  ^^^^  Objective  Element  771  the  [Lect. 

it  stood  alone,  would  leave  us  unsaved,  is  one  of  the 
commonplaces  of  Christian  theology ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  remission  of  sins  includes  the  blessings 
which  are  necessary  to  complete  our  salvation,"  ^  he 
is  putting  a  purely  abstract  hypothesis.  He  himself 
admits  that  forgiveness  and  the  new  life  always 
go  together,  but  he  insists  that  they  are  two  things, 
and  not  one.  They  are  two  only  as  the  sides  of  a 
shield  are  two,  but  you  cannot  have  the  one  without 
the  other ;  and  the  mere  suggestion  of  what  would  result 
if  pardon  stood  alone,  indisputably  leads  to  misconcep- 
tion. It  conveys  the  impression  that  a  sinner  is  first 
forgiven  because  of  the  attitude  he  takes  to  Christ's 
death,  and  only  after  that  becomes  related  to  Christ's 
quickening  life.  Some  maintain,  indeed,  that  this  is 
exactly  Paul's  argument  in  Romans,^  where  he  does  not 
take  up  the  function  of  faith  in  establishing  a  vital 
union  with  Christ  in  sanctification  till  he  has  completed 
his  exposition  of  justification  as  based  wholly  on  the 
objective  merits  of  Christ,  and  apart  from  human  merit. 
They  say  that  the  supposed  objection  to  his  own  teach- 
ing, which  he  starts,  "  Shall  we  continue  in  sin  that  grace 
may  abound  ?  "  shows  that  he  represents  God  as  justifying 
us  solely  through  our  faith  in  the  atoning  work  of  Christ, 
without  reference  to  our  future  renewal.  But  if  this 
bare  formal  acceptance  of  Christ's  work  for  us  were  all 
that  Paul  intended,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
him  to  reply  as  he  does  to  the  objector :  "  We  who  died 
to  sin,"  he  exclaims  in  horror,  "  how  shall  we  any  longer 
live  therein?"  By  the  very  act  that  led  to  our  justifica- 
tion we  were  baptized   into   Christ's  death,  that  as   He 

*  Atonement^  p.  336.  -  Chap,  vi. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  245 

was  raised  from  the  dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  so 
we  also  might  walk  in  newness  of  life.^  But  if  this 
moral  identification  of  our  life  with  Christ's  is  involved 
in  our  act  of  justifying  faith,  then  the  latter  becomes  not 
formal  acquiescence,  but  real  surrender.  Were  it  not  so, 
the  two  sides  of  our  spiritual  relation  to  Christ,  our 
justification  and  sanctification,  would  fall  apart.  The 
personal  acceptance  of  Him  would  be  a  totally  different 
thing  in  the  two  cases.  But  Paul's  system  is  not  a  con- 
fused dualism. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why,  in  building  up  his  philo- 
sophy of  redemption,  he  deals  first  and  almost  exclusively  \ 
with  justification.  He  is  striving,  above  all,  to  make  clear 
the  objective  ground  of  salvation,  to  show  that  in  no  sense 
is  the  work  or  conduct  of  the  Christian  an  element  in  ' 
what  constitutes  his  reconciliation  to  God.  Until  this  is 
acknowledged,  all  the  falsities  of  legalism  will  but  repeat 
themselves.  If  we  were  only  justified  so  far  as  we  were 
sanctified,  no  man  could  be  at  peace.  The  whole  effort 
of  the  Christian  soul  would  be  a  struggle  after  an  endless 
and  impossible  ideal.  But  "  being  justified  by  faith," 
says  the  apostle,  "  let  us  enter  into  full  possession  of  that 
state  of  peace  with  God  which  we  owe  to  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  This  consciousness  of  present  reconciliation  is 
fundamental.  It  is  the  condition,  as  it  is  the  inspiration, 
of  the  "  new  walk  "  in  righteousness.^      Had  Paul  gone 

^  Rom.  vi.  2-4.  The  root-idea  of  these  verses  is  that  baptism  into 
Christ  is  incorporation  into  Him,  into  a  Personality  who  passed  through  both 
death  and  resurrection,  and  that  therefore  we  cannot  be  identified  with  the 
one  without  the  other.  "The  idea  of  sacrifice  which  was  appHcd  to  the 
death  of  Christ  was  not  completed  in  the  idea  of  death,  but  held  within  it  in 
the  notion  of  life  liberated  and  availing." — T.  B.  Strong,  Manual  of  Theology^ 
p.  304. 

-  Cf  T.  H.  Green,  Miscellaneous  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  200. 


246  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

on,  before  he  had  fully  established  this  fact,  to  speak  of 
what  is  implied  in  it  as  regards  our  relation  to  God  in 
consecrated  living,  he  would  have  run  the  risk  of  obscur- 
ing the  objective  ground  of  our  acceptance.  For  though 
Christ  is  made  unto  us  sanctification  as  well  as  justifying 
righteousness,  and  therefore  in  reality  our  good  works, 
being  the  fruit  of  His  grace  within  us,  constitute  no  claim 
of  merit  before  God,  yet  in  the  realisation  of  personal 
holiness  there  is  a  blending  of  the  human  activity  with 
the  divine ;  and  it  might  have  been  falsely  inferred  that 
the  human  contributed  something  towards  creating  the 
ground  of  pardon.  The  apostle  renders  such  a  supposi- 
tion impossible  by  completing  his  argument  regarding 
the  justification  of  the  soul,  before  he  proceeds  to  unfold 
what  is  involved  in  the  relation  to  Christ,  which  the  soul 
has  taken  up  through  faith.  But  the  order  of  his  exposi- 
tion does  not  alter  the  fact  that  the  new  life,  whose 
nature  he  explains  in  chaps,  vi.— viii.,  is  not  an  external 
addition  to  the  faith  that  justifies ;  it  is  inherently  bound 
up  with  it.^  We  are  justified  solely  on  account  of  what 
Christ  is  and  has  done ;  but  the  faith  that  accepts  Him, 
that  sees  in  His  death  the  atonement  for  human  sin,  and 
identifies  itself  with  that  death,  is  in  its  essence  an  act 
of  self-committal  to  the  living  Christ,  and  a  reception  of 
His  Spirit.  If  it  be  not  this,  it  brings  neither  life  nor 
forgiveness  ;  if  it  brings  either,  it  brings  both  :  and  the 
ground  of  both  is  objective,  the  work  and  the  person  of 
Christ. 

The  fact  that  appropriation  on  our  part  is  necessary, 
proves  that  the  death  of  Christ  for  us  is  no  mere  substi- 
tutionary quid  pro  quo ;  otherwise,  it   would   be   in   itself 

*  See  Note  31,  440,  ^' Jtistitia  iniputata  ?iX\CiJus/iiia  iu/usa.^^ 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  247 

objectively  valid,  and  secure  a  universal  pardon.  If 
Christ  has  paid  your  debt  and  mine,  apart  from  our  indi- 
vidual relation  to  Him,  then,  so  far  as  guilt  is  concerned, 
we  should  already  have  our  discharge,  and  only  the 
spiritual  quickening  which  He  alone  can  communicate 
would  depend  on  the  response  of  faith.  But  as  this 
response  is  the  condition  of  the  pardon  as  well  as  the 
quickening,  Christ's  whole  redemption  is  an  ideal  one, 
which  faith  transmutes  into  an  actuality.  If  He  were 
the  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  in  the 
sense  of  enduring  the  quantitative  equivalent  of  the 
penalty  of  every  man's  transgressions,  then,  in  the  case 
of  every  unbeliever  whose  sin  remaineth  on  him,  Christ's 
endurance  of  the  penalty  was  an  overpayment  of  the 
debt.  Christ  did  not,  in  His  death  for  us,  suffer  so  much 
for  each  man  born  into  the  world,  so  that  had  there  been 
fewer  men  He  would  have  suffered  less.  He  atoned  for 
the  sin  of  the  race,  because,  by  identifying  Himself  with 
humanity.  He  had  to  bear  God's  condemnation  of  its  sin 
ere  He  could  impart  to  it  the  spirit  of  sonship.  In  Him 
alone  resides  the  power  to  confer  both  blessings  on  men, — 
they  are  already  present  in  Him  for  all  mankind ;  but 
as  regards  the  individual,  they  only  become  an  actual 
possession  through  his  receptivity.^ 

^  The  question,  therefore,  of  a  "Hmited  Atonement,"  once  so  eagerly 
debated,  which  necessarily  arises  on  the  quantitative  view  of  its  character,  has 
in  reality  no  point.  Just  because  it  was  an  atonement  for  the  race,  what  it 
accomplished  objectively,  or  per  se,  for  one,  it  equally  accomplished  for  all, 
in  securing  the  possibility  of  pardon.  It  is  no  more  strange  that  Christ  pos- 
sesses through  His  death  the  power  to  pardon  some  who  yet  possibly  remain 
unforgiven,  than  that  He  possesses  through  His  risen  life  the  power  to  renew 
some  who  possibly  remain  unquickened.  Both  facts  are  but  illustrations  of 
the  universal  principle,  that  all  spiritual  service,  human  or  divine,  is  condi- 
tioned in  its  effect  by  the  receptivity  of  the  person  to  whom  it  is  rendered,  and 
thus  so  far  may  be  spent  in  vain. 


248  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

No  merely  external  category  can  express  the  redemp- 
tion of  moral  beings  by  another.  To  override  their 
individuality  is  not  their  deliverance,  but  their  destruction. 
When  Paul  argues  most  strongly  that  the  death  of  Christ 
is  alone  the  ground  of  justification,  he  is  just  as  emphatic 
in  declaring  that  it  is  so  for  us,  because  we  perform  the 
personal  act  of  accepting  that  death  as  God's  righteous 
condemnation  of  our  sin.  In  other  words,  we  endorse 
and  embrace  the  spirit  of  His  sacrifice,  and  so  of  neces- 
sity we  rise  with  Him  into  newness  of  life.  The  entire 
course  of  our  Christian  experience  is  but  an  affirmation 
in  an  ever-deepening  sense  of  the  will  and  work  of 
Christ;  and  the  word  which  in  some  respects  best 
describes  the  whole  scope  of  His  redeeming  work  as 
both  objective  and  subjective,  is  not  substitution,  but 
representation.^  No  doubt  even  representation  fails  to 
bring  out  the  real  unity  of  Christ  with  us,  whereby  it  is 
He  who  fulfils  Himself  in  us,  and  not  simply  we  who, 
standing  apart,  "  think  His  thoughts  after  Him."  But 
it  at  least  sets  forth  the  fact  that  the  simplest  faith  that 
saves  has  in  the  heart  of  it  a  genuine  surrender  to  Christ, 
without  which  He  would  not  be  in  any  true  sense  our 
personal  representative  before  the  Father. 

There  is  a  preaching  of  the  death  of  Christ  for  us, 
which  tends  to  empty  faith  of  its  moral  content,  and 
to  reduce  the  soul's  relation  to  Christ  to  a  simple 
acquiescence  in  a  past  deliverance.  No  one  need  be 
astonished  that  the  converts  whom  it  makes  are  too 
often  awakened,  not  so  much  to  a  sense  of  guilt  as  to 
a  terror  of  judgment;  and  the  relief  they  obtain  is  far 
more  a  shelter  from   wrath   than   the    peace    of  forgive- 

^  Vid.  Bruce,  St.  Paul's  Conception  of  Christianity^  pp.  177,  178. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  249 

ness.  The  more  violent  and  one-sided  the  presentation 
of  the  atonement,  the  more  effect  it  will  produce  on 
many  simple  and  untutored  minds.  But  such  agonised 
emotion  is  not  necessarily  a  spiritual  experience  at  all, 
and  very  little  knowledge  of  character  is  required  to 
forecast  the  inevitable  reaction  and  prostration.  Even 
when  the  salvation  of  Christ  is  associated  in  their  minds 
rather  with  sin  than  with  its  punishment,  yet  so  wholly 
is  it  an  accomplished  fact,  that  the  need  of  a  personal 
struggle  against  evil,  as  the  imperious  call  of  their 
new  relation  to  Christ,  is  regarded  as  a  disparagement 
of  the  all-sufficiency  of  His  redemption.  No  other 
result  can  possibly  follow,  if  the  death  which  He  died 
once  for  all  is  severed  from  the  life  which  He  liveth 
for  evermore.  The  latter  is  the  only  guarantee  against 
that  misinterpretation  of  the  former,  which  degrades 
faith  into  the  formal  acceptance  of  a  divine  arrange- 
ment. When  the  life  is  thrown  into  the  background 
and  the  whole  emphasis  laid  upon  the  sacrificial  death, 
the  evil  is  twofold  :  not  only  are  the  converts  likely 
to  have  false  or  distorted  views  of  the  Christian  re- 
demption, but  many  who  might  otherwise  be  won  to 
Christ  are  alienated  by  a  doctrine  which  has  for  them 
no  force  of  spiritual  appeal. 

Dr.  Dale  well  observes  that  "  the  faith  which  is  the 
condition  on  our  side  of  receiving  '  redemption  through 
His  blood '  is  trust  in  Christ  Himself  as  the  Son  of 
God  and  Saviour  of  men.  .  .  .  For  this  trust  it  is  not 
necessary  that  men  should  even  acknowledge  the  Fact 
that  the  death  of  Christ  is  the  propitiation  for  the  sin 
of  the  world  ;  much  less  is  it  necessary  that  they  should 
receive  from  others  or  elaborate  for  themselves  a  Tlieoiy 


250  The  Objective  Element  in  the  [Lect. 

of  propitiation.  It  is  enough  that  the  authority  and 
love  of  Christ  have  been  so  revealed  to  them  that  they 
rely  on  Him  for  eternal  salvation."  ^  For  multitudes, 
this  is  the  path  by  which  they  come.  They  are  driven 
to  seek  God  by  an  inward  restlessness ;  the  longing 
for  His  fellowship  and  His  service  grows  into  a  passion ; 
but  as  they  press  on  they  become  weary  of  the  futility 
of  eood  resolves,  and  sick  at  heart  of  their  moral  feeble- 
ness.  The  vision  of  Christ  rises  before  them,  not  of 
this  or  that  aspect  of  His  character  or  work,  but  of  His 
total  triumph  in  life,  death,  and  resurrection.  They  see 
in  Him  the  revelation  of  God's  redeeming  love,  the 
pledge  of  man's  victory,  and  yield  themselves  to  Him 
to  be  lifted  up  into  the  divine  communion  and  peace. 
Their  one  desire  is  to  escape  from  themselves,  to  be 
taken  into  the  shelter  of  His  goodness,  and  filled  with 
His  grace.  Being  in  Him,  they  know  that  condemna- 
tion no  longer  rests  upon  them;  but  that  is  not  because 
they  feel  it  has  been  borne  by  Him  in  their  stead,  but 
because  it  has  no  longer  any  meaning  for  that  redeemed 
life  of  which  He  has  made  them  partakers.  Nor  do  they 
associate  their  pardon  specifically  with  His  death  more 
than  with  His  life.  That  such  a  view  is  inadequate 
to  the  facts,  I  have  already  sought  to  show.  But,  how- 
ever inadequate,  it  has  the  reality  of  saving  faith  in  it. 
The  truth  is  that  the  sacrificial  character  of  Christ's 
death,  instead  of  being  necessarily  a  conscious  element 
in  conversion,  is  often  borne  in  upon  the  believer  only 
in  the  later  stages  of  his  experience.  It  is  through 
his  "  following  on  to  know  the  Lord,"  through  the 
deepening  insight   that  springs   from   a  constant  abiding 

^  Dale,  Aloiiemcnt,  p.  314;  cf.  pp.  iii,  112. 


VI.]  Redemptive  Work  of  Christ  251 

in  Him,  that  he  comes  to  realise  the  strength  and 
enormity  of  sin  as  a  poison  in  the  race,  as  a  dissolvent 
in  the  moral  organism  of  humanity,  and  thus  demanding 
for  its  removal  just  such  a  vindication  of  the  divine 
righteousness  towards  humanity  as  is  involved  in  the 
atoning  death.  Some,  indeed,  never  reach  this  at  all, 
and  yet  are  truly  surrendered  souls  vi^hose  hope  is  only 
in  the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ.  But  if  it  be  so, — if,  as 
Dr.  Dale  says,  there  may  be  Christian  faith  without  any 
distinct  perception  on  our  part  of  the  atoning  value 
of  the  death, — then  the  one  essential  thing  for  faith  is 
the  recognition  of  the  objectivity  of  Christ's  redeeming 
work,  of  that  life  which  He  has  gained  for  men,  and  in 
the  receiving  of  which  they  obtain  reconciliation  and 
renewal. 


LECTURE    VII. 

THE    NEW    LIFE    IN    CHRIST 
AND    THE    CONDITIONS   OF    ITS    REALISATION 


253 


SYNOPSIS. 

I.  The  righteousness  of  the  Law  and  the  righteousness  of  God. 
The  relation  of  the  Law  of  God  to  His  Life. 
St.  Paul's  philosophy  of  history  :  its  Three  stages. 
Faith  the   one  condition  of  spiritual  life   for  man,    whether  fallen   or 

unfallen. 
Relation  of  the  New  Life  to  man's  natural  character. 
Did  St.  Paul  hold  that  it  ought  to  be  complete  from  the  first  ? 
The  truth  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  not  dependent  on  its  historical  setting. 
Its  essential  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  Christ. 

n.  The  Church  as  the  Home  of  the  New  Life  : — 

(i)  As  the  Bearer  of  the  historic  Message. 
(2)  As  its  Interpreter  to  the  individual. 
The  communion  of  the  Church  regarded  by  the  Apostles  as  indispensable 

for  Christians  :  their  view  of  Baptism. 
The  New  Testament  conception  of  the  Church  : — 
(i)  Absence  of  Sacerdotalism. 
(2)  No  form  of  ecclesiastical  Polity  prescribed  as  necessary. 

III.  \l\xn\2Ln\iy  di5  \he  Sphere  of  its  realisation.  The  New  Life  not  meant  to 
suppress  the  natural  qualities  of  man  :  depends  on  them  for  its 
Content. 

The  error  of  the  Monastic  and  Puritan  ideals. 

Due  in  part  to  a  false  conception  of  Christ's  example. 

Adaptive  and  absorptive  power  of  Christianity  ;  only  slowly  realised  by 
the  Church. 


25i^ 


LECTURE    VII 

The  New  Life  in  Christ  and  the  Conditions 
OF  ITS  Realisation. 

There  is  no  point  on  which  Paul  insists  more  strenuously 
than  that  the  righteousness  of  God  is  directly  opposed 
to  the  righteousness  which  is  of  the  law.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  leave  the  contrast  simply  in  this  bare 
antithesis.  For  the  moral  law  is  no  accidental  thing, 
it  is  the  norm  and  principle  of  our  rational  being ;  it  is 
itself  "  spiritual,"  "  holy  and  righteous  and  good  "  ;  ^  and 
therefore  the  new  life  of  sonship  which  Christ  mediates 
to  us  by  the  Spirit  must  be  brought  into  some  intelligible 
and  necessary  relation  to  it.  From  the  form  in  which 
the  apostle  at  times  expresses  himself,  we  might  be  led 
to  imagine  that,  ideally  speaking,  there  are  two  ways 
in  \\'hich  man  may  be  accepted  of  God  :  on  the  one 
hand,  through  the  perfect  keeping  of  the  law,  in  which 
case  he  would  ipso  facto  have  a  title  to  the  divine 
favour ;  on  the  other  hand,  being  unable  to  keep  it, 
he  may  be  justified  through  faith  in  Christ,  who  is  the 
righteousness  of  God,  and  who  fulfils  in  him  the  require- 
ment of  the  law.^  On  this  view,  the  latter  method 
would  be  one  devised  by  God  in  default  of  the  practic- 
ability of  the  former. 

^  Rom,  vii.  14,  12.  -  Rom.  viii.  4. 

256 


256  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

But  nothing  could  be  further  from  Paul's  conception. 
Whatever  stainless  spirits  there  be  before  the  Throne 
keep  their  estate  through  their  free  submission  to  God 
as  the  instruments  of  His  will  and  power.  They  have 
no  righteousness  of  their  own  as  distinguished  from 
that  which  He  confers.  It  is  theirs  only  because  it  is 
given  them,  and  they  cannot  glory  as  if  they  had  not 
received  it.  So,  if  the  final  cause  of  man's  existence 
be  to  realise  his  sonship  to  God,  then,  however  much 
that  may  imply  a  homage  rendered,  it  is  based  on  a 
grace  bestowed  and  appropriated.  He  who  is  the 
Father  of  souls  is  not  only  their  origin  and  their  guide, 
but  the  abiding  inward  Spirit  of  their  sonship,  without 
whose  indwelling  the  sonship  could  not  be.  Any 
theory  which  assigns  to  men,  fallen  or  unfallen,  a  primary 
and  uncommunicated  virtue  mutilates  the  moral  universe. 
Instead  of  One  "  from  whom  all  good  counsels  and  all 
just  works  do  proceed,"  you  have  innumerable  inde- 
pendent centres  of  goodness  among  whom  God  is,  though 
it  may  be  in  a  supreme  and  inconceivable  degree,  only 
the  first  and  most  dominant.  This  is  to  deny  God 
altogether,  in  any  valid  sense  of  the  name.  If  He 
exists  at  all.  He  is  the  life  and  harmony  of  the  entire 
creation,  and  in  a  moral  world  the  only  possibility  of 
real  communion  with  Him  is  the  acknowledgment  by 
the  souls  whom  He  has  made  that  of  Him  and  to  Him 
are  all  things.  Had  man,  therefore,  fulfilled  the  purpose 
of  God  regarding  him,  he  would,  up  to  the  measure 
of  his  capacity,  have  perfectly  kept  the  law ;  but  this 
undeviating  loyalty  would  have  endowed  him  with  no 
merit  which  he  could  claim  as  his  own,  for  it  was 
rendered  possible   simply   through   his  faith,  his  constant 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        257 

receptivity  to  the  inflow  of  the  one  Spirit  of  good. 
He  would  have  no  standing  outside  of  God,  but  only 
in  Him. 

This,  then,  is  the  one  final  conception  of  the  law  of 
God  ;  it  is  the  presence  of  God's  own  life  ruling  in  the  soul 
as  a  guiding,  sustaining,  quickening  power.  The  same 
divine  Spirit  that  appoints  the  duty  fulfils  it  in  us, 
and  "  boasting  "  is  excluded.-*-  How,  then,  comes  it  that 
boasting,  or  the  sense  of  merit  as  over  against  God,  is 
precisely  what  we  associate  with  the  observance  of  the 
divine  law?  Because  of  the  entrance  of  sin  creatine^ 
a  gulf  between  God  and  us,  which  we  feel  must  be 
bridged  over  before  we  regain  our  essential  fellowship 
with  Him.  As  our  conscience  tells  us  that  it  is  we^  not 
God,  who  have  created  the  gulf,  so  we  easily  pass  into 
the  delusion  that  it  is  we  who  have  to  build  the  bridee 

o 

of  reconciliation.  The  law  which  we  have  broken 
becomes  separated  in  our  thought  from  Him  and  His 
life.  It  becomes  a  mere  command,  a  tertium  quid 
intervening  between  us.  He  ceases  to  be  for  us  ;  He 
is  against  us  ;  not  a  Father  but  a  taskmaster,  whose 
rigid  behests  overwhelm  us  with  despair,  both  because 
of  their  confessed  justice,  and  of  our  inability  to  keep 
them.  He  is  not  to  be  reached  apart  from  them,  but 
only  through  them,  through  our  strictest  observance  of 
them.  Consequently  we  are  thrown  back  upon  our- 
selves, and  upon  what  we  regard  as  our  own  moral 
resources  ;  or  if,  in  the  stress  of  agony,  we  still  cry  to 
Him  for  help,  it  is  in  reality  rather  for  the  aids  of  His 
grace  to  reinforce  the  natural  strength  which  of  itself 
does    not   suffice,  than   for   the   cleansing  of  hearts   dis- 

^  Rom.  iii.  27. 
17 


258  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

ordered  at  the  core.  And  when  we  do  obey  His 
command  in  any  particular,  we  instinctively  congratulate 
ourselves  on  our  fidelity,  and  look  upwards  for  our 
deserved  reward.  "  What  shall  we  have,  therefore  ? " 
But  as  it  is  the  loss  of  God's  life  which  has  brought  woe 
and  condemnation  to  the  sinner,  it  is  futile  to  fancy 
that  anything  but  the  regaining  of  it  can  satisfy  him, 
or  that  it  can  be  regained  in  any  other  way  than  by 
the  surrender  which  conditioned  its  first  possession. 
The  good  works  which  he  performs  or  believes  himself 
to  perform  as  a  mere  individual  can  never  be  a  sub- 
stitute for  it,  or  even  a  means  of  attaining  it ;  for 
the  principle  which  animates  these  breaks  his  con- 
nection with  the  unity  of  the  moral  world.  The 
first  and  fundamental  thing  is  to  re-establish  this 
connection,  and  it  can  only  be  re-established  through 
his  resuming  the  attitude  of  self-committal,  of  receptivity 
towards  God,  which  he  has  wilfully  forsworn. 

Paul's  whole  philosophy  of  redemption  is  simply 
an  elaboration  of  this  thought,  an  exposition  of  the 
method  by  which  God  restores  a  sinful  race  to  the 
glorious  liberty  of  His  children.  The  argument  in  its 
historical  form  is  twice  repeated,  in  Galatians  and 
Romans.^  He  marks  three  stages  in  God's  self-revela- 
tion :  the  Promise,  the  Law,  and  the  Gospel,  or  fulfil- 
ment of  the  Promise.  Whether  this  triple  division 
has  the  same  significance  for  us  as  for  Paul  and  his 
age,  will  be  considered  later.  We  have  at  present  to 
deal  with  the  development  of  the  apostle's  own  thought. 

Very  early,  he  says,  in  the  history  of  mankind  it 
pleased    God   to    unfold    His   purpose    of    grace.      That 

^  Gal.  ii.-iv.  ;  Rom.  iv.-vii. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        259 

purpose  was  to  be  realised  through  a  special  and  chosen 
people.  So  He  called  Abraham  to  be  the  father  and 
founder  of  it.  He  gave  assurances  to  him  of  blessing 
and  protection,  and  the  promise  of  a  numerous  posterity, 
to  whom  the  divine  favour  would  be  continued,  and 
thus  through  him  all  the  families  of  the  earth  would 
be  blessed.  Abraham  believed  God,  in  spite  of  adverse 
omens ;  leaned  on  God,  as  weakness  leans  on  strength ; 
trusted  Him  to  realise  in  and  through  him  His  own 
word  ;  and  it  was  reckoned  unto  him  for  righteousness, 
because  it  was  an  act  of  self-committal,  reuniting  him 
to  God.  Yet,  however  real  Abraham's  surrender,  it 
lacked  moral  depth.  The  promise  on  which  he  rested 
had  very  slight  spiritual  reference.  It  contained  no 
solution  of  the  problem  of  man's  sin,  for  the  problem 
was  not  then  felt ;  and  till  the  pressure  of  it  was  brought 
home  to  the  conscience,  no  solution  was  possible. 

Hence  the  second  stage  was  the  statement  of  the 
problem :  God's  revelation  of  His  eternal  character  as  the 
Holy  One,  and  of  the  laws  which  underlie  all  true 
communion  with  Him.  Man  was  awaked  to  the  con- 
sciousness alike  of  his  destiny  and  his  tragic  failure  to 
fulfil  it.  Though  at  first  the  perception  of  God's  will 
concerning  him  seemed  to  open  out  possibilities  of 
future  achievement  and  inspired  him  with  hope,  it  surely 
and  finally  depressed  and  disheartened  him  by  the 
deepening  recognition  it  brought  of  the  endlessness  of 
the  divine  demand,  and  the  radical  feebleness  of  his 
own  moral  nature.  It  may,  indeed,  be  asked.  Why 
should  the  law  of  God  have  of  necessity  this  con- 
demnatory effect  on  the  sinner?  As  made  known  to 
the   Jews,  it  presented   an    incomparably  fuller  view   of 


26o  The  New  Life  m  Christ  [Lect. 

the  divine  character  than  that  attained  by  Abraham. 
Why  should  it  have  been  divorced  in  their  thought 
from  the  present  and  purifying  power  of  God  Himself, 
and  depicted  as  a  mere  external  standard  for  human 
effort  to  reach  ?  Why  should  they  not  have  welcomed 
it  thankfully  as  on  its  moral  side  a  clearer  manifesta- 
tion of  God's  intention  and  their  own  duty,  and  while 
thus  possessed  of  a  profound  sense  of  shortcoming, 
almost  unknown  to  the  patriarch,  have  still  retained  the 
patriarch's  trust  in  God  as  the  fulfiller  of  His  own 
purpose?  And  was  not  this  all  the  more  possible, 
seeing  that,  in  the  symbolism  of  the  sacrificial  law,  there 
was  constantly  kept  before  them  God's  acceptance  of 
the  penitent  and  surrendered  soul  ? 

The  answer  to  that  from   Paul's  standpoint  is  that 
in   the  case  of  Abraham   the  religious  life  was   implicit. 
It  had  not  come  to  self-consciousness.     The  unity  which 
it   attained   with    God    through    faith  had   no  fulness   of 
content,  just  because  the  two  sides  which  it  brought  to- 
gether and  harmonised,  the  longing  for  God  and  the  sense 
of  separation  from   Him,  were  not  clearly  realised ;  and 
until  the  antagonism  between  the  divine  and  the  human 
caused   by  sin  had  received   its  final   and  emphatic  ex- 
pression, real  and  adequate  reconciliation  was  impossible. 
But  when,  through  God's  further  revelation  of  Himself, 
this  antagonism  had  once  been   laid   bare,  and   sin   had 
become  a  conscious  and  ruinous    fact   in    man's   nature, 
there    was    nothing    in   the  promise   made  to   Abraham 
which    met    the     stress    of    this    new    necessity.       The 
sacrificial  ritual,  indeed,  helped   to   relieve  the  burden  of 
realised  guilt,  just  because,  though   legal  in  form,  it  was 
in  essence  spiritual,   teaching  the  penitent  to  find,    not 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        261 

in  himself  or  his  offering,  but  in  God's  mercy,  the 
ground  of  restoration.  Yet  the  relief  was  incomplete 
at  the  best ;  it  was  the  germ  or  hope  of  a  deliverance 
rather  than  its  assured  possession.  And  frequently  the 
sacrifice  wholly  lost  this  uplifting  and  emancipating 
significance,  and  became  only  an  additional  part  of 
God's  imperative  to  man.  For,  however  true  it  may 
be  that  the  law  of  God  and  His  renewing  life  are  one 
for  those  whose  connection  with  Him  has  not  been 
broken,  yet  where  this  connection  has  been  radically 
impaired  by  sin,  the  soul,  conscious  of  having  lost  its 
inward  fellowship  with  God,  and  yet  impelled  to  relate 
itself  to  Him  in  some  manner,  seeks  to  supply  the  void 
by  outward  obedience.  It  inevitably,  and  in  a  sense 
truly,  regards  Him  ab  extra.  For  though,  as  Augustine 
says,  God  gives  what  He  commands,  yet  the  sinner  is 
unable  through  the  perversion  of  his  sinfulness  to 
recognise  this,  or  even  to  receive  what  God  gives.  The 
externality  of  the  divine  law  is  the  one  condition  under 
which  the  divine  can  at  first  reveal  to  man  the  desperate 
self-contradiction  of  his  nature.  In  this  way  alone  is 
he  led  to  face  sin  as  a  serious  problem,  and  to  strive 
after  the  possession  of  his  divine  heritage ;  and  in  this 
way  alone  is  the  hopelessness  of  his  quest  made  clear 
to  him,  and  the  heart  stirred  to  long  for  a  higher 
solution. 

But  this  result  only  follows  if  the  law,  notwith- 
standing its  legal  aspect,  retains  for  him  its  moral  and 
spiritual  force.  When  that  is  lost,  then  the  standard 
aimed  at  awakes  no  divine  discontent,  for  it  consists  of 
formal  rules  of  behaviour  and  ritual  which  a  scrupulous 
devotion    may   adequately   observe.       Hence,    when    the 


262  The  Nezv  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

law  was  denuded  by  the  Pharisees  of  its  ethical  meaning, 
even  the  sacrificial  part  of  it,  which  witnessed  to  the 
need  of  an  abiding  contrition  of  spirit,  merely  ministered 
the  more  to  an  empty  self-glorying.  Such  a  self-satis- 
faction was  attained,  not  by  the  keeping  of  the  law,  but 
by  the  death  of  the  moral  nature.  It  was  the  last  stage 
of  spiritual  incapacity,  and  "  effectually  prevented  the 
inward  communication  of  God."  But  wherever,  as  for 
Paul,  the  law  kept  its  divine  searching  power,  every 
new  obedience  led  to  a  deeper  self-condemnation,  for 
it  but  discovered  a  further  and  more  penetrating 
demand.  The  attempt  to  reach  peace  under  these 
conditions  defeated  itself.  The  problem  so  stated  was 
insoluble.  The  law  was  viewed  as  an  external  authority, 
yet  it  exacted  an  inward  loyalty ;  but  this  inward 
loyalty  meant  such  surrender  of  the  heart  to  God  as 
left  no  room  for  mere  individual  or  personal  righteous- 
ness. Hence  the  whole  legal  method,  whether  the  law 
were  the  Mosaic  code  or  the  injunction  of  conscience, 
was  vitiated   by  an   inherent  contradiction.^ 

The  tJw'd  stage  of  God's  self-revelation  was  there- 
fore the  resolution  of  the  antinomy  in  the  only  possible 
way,  by  the  restoration  of  man  to  sonship,  whereby 
he  would  be  lifted  clean  over  the  barriers  of  a  leefal 
morality.  Without  repeating  what  has  been  already 
said  of  the  objective  work  of  Christ  in  redemption,  and 
confining  ourselves  to  the  special  point  that  is  here  in 
question,  viz.  the  method  by  which  He  delivers  us  from 
the  thraldom  of  the  law,  there  are  two  considerations 
which  have  to  be  kept  in   view. 

The    first    is    that,   in   order  to  be   the    mediator  ot 

^  See  Nole  o2,  p.  444,  "St.  VaxxVs  Conccplion  of  the  Law." 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation         263 

the  filial  spirit  to  others,  He  had  to  possess  it  perfectly 
Himself.  It  was  no  more  possible  for  Him  than  for 
anyone  else  to  overcome  the  contradiction  involved  in 
a  legal  obedience  to  the  Father's  will.  He  had  from  the 
first  to  be  above  the  contradiction,  to  breathe  a  spiritual 
atmosphere  where  the  divine  law  had  no  reality  apart 
from  the  divine  life.  When  He  says  of  Himself,  "  Even 
as  the  Father  hath  said  unto  Me,  so  I  speak.  He  that 
sent  Me  is  with  Me  ;  He  hath  not  left  Me  alone  ;  for 
I  do  always  the  things  that  are  pleasing  to  Him,"  ^  He 
is  claiming  absolute  fidelity  to  God's  will,  only  because 
He  possesses  in  its  fulness  the  filial  quality  of  receptivity. 
For  Him,  therefore,  as  a  moral  subject,  the  law  did 
not  exist  as  an  external  authority ;  it  was  one  with 
the  impulse  and  affirmation  of  His  own  soul.  The 
second  fact  is  that  while  this  is  true  of  Him  personally, 
in  the  service  that  He  offered  up  to  God,  yet  there  is 
a  sense  in  which  that  law  did  exist  for  Him.  Complete 
and  final  as  His  obedience  was,  it  was  wrought  out,  not 
under  normal  conditions,  but  "  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh,"  2  and  so  was  constantly  tested  by  the  moral 
struggle  involved  in  a  life  in  the  flesh.  And  still 
further,  in  this  curriculum  of  temptation  through  which 
He  passed.  He  entered  into  such  identification  with 
those  who  were  themselves  subject  to  the  condemning 
power  of  the  law,  that  while  retaining  His  own  sonship 
that  condemnation  was  endured  by  Him  as  their  repre- 
sentative. This  double  consciousness  in  Christ,  though 
it  may  appear  paradoxical,  lies,  as  we  have  seen,^  at 
the  root  of  His  redemptive  power.  Paul,  in  quoting 
from  Deuteronomy,  and  applying  the  passage  to   Christ, 

^  John  xii.  50 ;  viii,  29.         "  Rom.  viii.  3.         ^  See  Lect.  VI.  pp.  238-40. 


2b4  TJie  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

"  accursed  of  God  is  everyone  that  is  hanged  on  a  tree," 
instinctively  omits  the  words  "  of  God,"  lest  they  should 
convey  the  idea  that  Christ  personally  was  the  object 
of  God's  curse.^  Nevertheless  the  curse  of  the  law  fell 
upon  Him  in  the  bitterness  of  that  death,  in  freely  sub- 
mitting to  which  the  Sinless  acknowledged  the  justice 
of  God's  displeasure  at  human  sin,  and  the  awful  moral 
necessity  whereby  the  sinner,  by  forfeiting  the  spirit 
of  sonship,  turns  the  will  of  God  into  a  threatening  law. 
Hence  through  this  sacrifice  of  Himself  He  becomes  the 
destroyer  of  the  old  law  for  those  who  receive  His  filial 
life.  The  law  as  such  not  merely  ceases  to  condemn, 
it  ceases  to  be ;  it  is  once  more,  as  for  the  unfallen,  the 
law  of  the  Spirit  of  life. 

When  we  speak  of  Christ  as  "  restoring  "  us  to  our 
true  relation  to  God,  the  phrase,  though  substantially 
accurate,  is  apt  to  convey  a  false  or  exaggerated  idea 
of  primeval  man.  The  Book  of  Genesis  pictures  to  us 
human  life  in  a  condition  of  childlike  innocence.  The 
idyllic  union  with  God  which  it  portrays  is  very  different 
from  the  position  to  which  Christ's  redemption  raises 
the  soul,  either  in  its  implicit  victory  in  this  world,  or 
its  final  triumph  in  the  next.  But  the  story  of  the  Fall 
has  an  eternal  value,  as  teaching  that  sin  is  misconceived 
when  it  is  regarded  either  as  a  necessary  stage  in  moral 
development  or  as  an  evil  imposed  from  without ;  that 
it  essentially  implies  a  perversion  of  man's  will,  a  de- 
parture from  the  true  character  of  his  life  as  the  constant 
recipient  of  the  divine  Spirit.^  In  a  word,  it  sets  forth 
the  ideal  purpose  of  God  concerning  man   as  His  child  ; 

^  Vid.  Lightfoot,  Count,  on  Gal.  iii.  13. 

2  See  Note  33,  p.  450,  •'  Evolution  and  the  Fall." 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        265 

and  Christ's  redemption  may  be  called  a  restoration 
because  it  brings  man  back  to  the  lines  along  which 
alone  he  could  attain  the  end  of  his  creation. 

Considering  the  connotation  which  the  term  "  works  " 
has  for  us  through   Paul's   usage  of  the  word,  it  may  be 
questioned   whether    it    is    not    misleading   to   speak,    as 
the  Confession  of  Faith  does,  of  a  "  Covenant  of  Works 
wherein    life   was    promised    to    Adam,  and    in    him   to 
his   posterity,    upon  condition    of   perfect    and    personal 
obedience "  ;     but     "  man     by    his     Fall    having    made 
himself  incapable    of   life    by    that   Covenant,   the    Lord 
was    pleased    to    make    with    him    a    second,    commonly 
called   the  Covenant  of  Grace."  ■"•      For,  ex  Jiypothesi,  the 
characteristic  of  Adam  in  his  unfallen  state  was  just  the 
perfectness  of  his  faith  in   God,  which   made  him  con- 
tinually   responsive    to    the    promptings    of    the  divine 
will ;  and  it  is  only  when   this   faith   is  lost  or  impaired 
that    any    thought    of    woi'ks    as    a    form    of    personal 
obedience   arises.       Christ   restores   us    by   re-quickening 
in    us   the   lost  power  of  faith.      Faith  is  not  a    means 
of  salvation    to    which    we    must   resort    because    other 
means  fail ;   it  is   the  one  condition,  both   for  fallen  and 
for    unfallen    man,    of   acceptance    and    life.       Only,    it 
operates   differently   in    the   two   cases.      In    the   sinless, 
faith    is  the   medium  of  receiving    God's    righteousness ; 
in  the  sinful,  it  "  is  counted  for  righteousness."      He  who, 
on   account  of   his    sin,  cannot   render  to   God   the  full 
obedience  of  faith,  is  by  his  faith  identified  with  Christ, 
who  is  the  righteousness  of   God   for  sinful  men,  and  he 
receives  through  this   identification  the  increasing  power 
of  sonship.       The  eternal   Son   is    the    one    mediator  of 
^  Confession  of  Faith,  chap.  vii. 


2  66  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

the  divine  life  to  the  human  spirit,  whether  fallen  or 
unfallen.  But  for  the  former  His  mediation  only  avails 
when  it  is  realised  under  a  form  which  removes  from 
the  spirit  its  burden  of  guilt,  and  contains  the  guarantee 
of  its  ultimate  victory  over  indwelling  sin,  and  its  perfect 
union  with  God  in  filial  fellowship.  Thus  it  is  that  the 
same  lines  which  God  laid  down  for  man's  life  in  his 
creation  are  maintained  in  his  redemption,  and  "  After 
Last  returns  the  First,  though  a  wide  compass  round 
be  fetched,"  ^  owing  to  the  devastating  entrance  of  sin. 

Sometimes  this  unity  of  man's  relation  to  God  in 
creation  and  redemption  is  obscured  for  us  by  the  terms 
in  which  the  spiritual  change  in  the  soul  is  described. 
The  new  birth,  which  is  John's  name  for  it,  and  the  new 
creation,  which  is  Paul's,^  both  set  forth  the  completeness 
of  the  transformation,  and  its  source  in  God.  But,  when 
taken  abstractly,  they  have  too  often  been  interpreted  as 
signifying  that  the  life  born  of  God  has  no  affinity  to 
anything  in  man's  natural  character.  A  certain  plausi- 
bility is  given  to  this  view  by  the  emphatic  antitheses  in 
which  Paul  contrasts  the  state  of  nature  and  the  state  of 
grace,  the  old  and  the  new  man.^  That  such  is  not  his 
conception  is  very  clear  from  the  seventh  chapter  of 
Romans,  in  which  the  conflict  depicted,  though  it  con- 
tains elements  that  are  drawn  from  Christian  experience, 
is  fundamentally  true  of  man  in  general,  wherever  the 
moral  sense  has  attained  any  development.*  The  law  of 
the  mind,  which  is  opposed  to  the  "  law  in  the  members," 

^  Browning,  Apparent  Failure. 

2  Paul  mentions  the  "new  birth"'  only  in  Tit.  iii.  5  :   "The  washing  (or 
laver)  of  regeneration. " 

'  Rom.  vi.  6 ;  Eph.  iv.  22,  24 ;  Col.  iii.  9,  10. 

^  Cf.  Sunday  and  Ilcadlam,  Comm.  on  Roniaus^  pp. '1S5,  1S6. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation         267 

is  the  higher  side  of  man's  nature,  the  witness  of  his 
kinship  to  the  divine.  But  though  it  bears  this  testimony, 
it  has  no  power  to  overcome  the  flesh  or  the  law  of  sin, 
until  it  is  brought  under  the  influence  of,  and  penetrated 
by,  the  Spirit  of  God,  in  whom  the  man  is  restored  to 
himself;  and  it  is  through  this  higher  element,  call  it 
conscience  or  moral  sense  or  what  you  will,  that  the 
Spirit  lays  hold  of  him  and  convinces  him  of  his  need  of 
renewal.^  Even  when  he  is  in  the  stage  of  condemnation 
under  a  menacing  external  law,  man,  though  actually  a 
slave,  is  potentially  a  son ;  ^  and  it  is  this  very  contradic- 
tion between  his  state  and  his  possibilities  which  causes 
the  misery  of  his  being,  and  inspires  the  cry  for  deliver- 
ance. Christ  makes  the  potential  a  real  sonship,  and  so 
brings  him,  even  amid  earth's  imperfection,  in  sight  of 
his  goal. 

And  just  as  some  have  misunderstood  Paul  as  holding 
that  the  life  born  of  the  Spirit  is  a  new  creation  which 
finds  no  affinity  in  man's  natural  condition,  so  it  has  been 
argued  that  he  represents  that  life  as  a  complete  thing 
from  the  first.  The  contention  is,  not  that  he  found  his 
ideal  anywhere  realised,  but  that  the  ideal  itself  which  he 
cherished  was  that  of  a  life  in  Christ  requiring  no  painful 
process  of  growth  for  its  perfection.  This  view  is  based 
on  the  decisive  terms  which  he  employs  to  describe  its 
absoluteness,  its  severance  from  the  condemning  past,  its 
inward  freedom  and  triumph.  "  Ye  are  dead ;  ye  are 
risen  with  Christ ;  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God ; 
ye  are  complete  in  Him."  But  the  finality  which  is  here 
expressed   is   due  to  two  causes,  inseparably  related   to 

^  See  Beyschlag,  N.  T.  Theology,  vol.  ii.  p.  2og. 
2  Gal.  iv.  I,  3  ;  vid.  Lightfoot,  note  on  ver.  5. 


268  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

each  other.  First,  it  is  inspired  by  the  thoughts  con- 
nected with  what  he  elsewhere  terms  the  justification 
and  adoption  of  the  believer,  who,  in  virtue  of  the  right- 
eousness of  God  which  is  in  Christ,  occupies  a  totally  new 
relation  to  God.  He  has  crossed  the  line  which  separ- 
ates the  condemned  from  the  accepted  ;  he  has  passed 
from  death  unto  life.  This  step  is  decisive,  final.  Then, 
secondly,  the  life  of  which  he  has  become  possessor  is 
regarded  as  to  its  content  in  an  ideal  aspect.  It  is 
viewed  sub  specie  ceternitatis^  not  as  it  is  under  the 
hampering  conditions  of  time,  but  as  a  thing  in  reality 
above  time,  a  portion  of  God's  immortality.  For,  faint 
and  unevolved  as  it  may  be,  it  is  yet  the  true  self  of  the 
believer :  and  the  old  nature,  however  practically  ob- 
structive, is  yet  a  baffled  and  repudiated  thing,  external 
to  his  essential  personality.  Hence  John  says,  with  an 
amazing  boldness,  "  Whosoever  is  begotten  of  God  doeth 
no  sin,  because  His  seed  abideth  in  him  ;  and  he  cannot 
sin  because  he  is  begotten  of  God."  ^  As  the  higher  and 
the  lower  self  are  in  their  nature  mutually  exclusive,  so 
the  lower  has  no  significance  for  the  man  who  is,  in  will 
and  inmost  being,  identified  with  the  higher.  This  may 
be  called  an  ideal  picture,  but  only  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  ideal  is  the  finally  real.  The  new  life  which  is  still 
in  process  is  treated  as  complete,  because,  being  rooted 
in  the  divine,  it  contains  within  itself  the  guarantee  of 
its  completion.  Therefore  all  possible  excellences  and 
prerogatives  are  attributed  to  it.  This  is  especially 
characteristic  of  Paul's  description  in  Ephesians  of  the 
privileges  of  believers,  who  are  "  enriched  with  all  spiritual 
blessings  in  the  heavenlies  in  Christ."^     The  Church,  as  he 

^  I  John  iii.  9.  2  j£p|^^  j^  ^  ;  cf.  ii.  6. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        269 

sees  it,  has  already  put  on  her  coronation  robes.  Her 
triumph  has  come ;  the  echoes  of  earth's  struggle  have 
died  away. 

That  is  one  side,  the  noumenal,  the  eternally  sure 
and  perfect  life  of  those  who  have  gained  the  heritage  of 
Christ's  peace.  But  there  is  the  other  side,  the  pheno- 
menal, the  often  bitter  and  tragic  experience  of  the 
Christian  soul  as  it  journeys  towards  the  city.  And  no 
man  ever  saw  that  with  a  keener  eye  than  Paul.  His 
Epistles  are  full  of  it.  While  his  transcendental  instinct, 
his  spiritual  vision,  lifts  him  at  times  far  above  it  into 
"  the  heavenlies,"  where  the  abiding  realities  are,  yet  he 
does  not  forget  that  for  man  on  earth  it  is  no  phantasm, 
but  the  sternest  of  facts.  Though  the  battle  is  won, 
none  the  less  it  has  to  be  fought  out.  The  severe  repri- 
mands which  he  delivers  to  the  Corinthians  as  babes  in 
Christ,  unable  to  receive  the  strong  meat  of  the  Gospel,^ 
are  not  to  be  interpreted  as  indicating  that  he  made  no 
allowance  for  any  principle  of  growth  in  the  Christian 
life.  As  well  as  any,  he  knew  that  that  life  has  its  stages 
of  education,  and  that  no  small  part  of  the  education 
consists  of  the  salutary  lessons  learned  through  miscar- 
riage and  failure.  But  though  this  experience  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree  is  invariable,  it  does  not  entitle 
us  to  attribute  the  responsibility  of  our  failures  to  the 
"  law  that  is  in  our  members."  The  bias  to  sin  which 
belongs  to  the  carnal  nature,  only  becomes  actual  through 
the  consent  of  the  will,  and  therefore  in  no  particular  act 
of  sin'  are  we  relieved  from  blame.  Here  we  touch  one 
of  the  many  paradoxes  of  Christian  experience.  However 
true   it   may  be  that,  so   long  as  we   are   environed   by 

•^  I  Cor.  iii.  I,  2. 


270  The  Nezv  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

earthly  conditions,  we  cannot  attain  perfection,  the  only 
language  which  does  justice  to  the  Christian  conscience 
is  that  which  declares  that  we  ought  to  attain  to  it.^  But 
it  is  stolid  literalism  to  turn  this  language  into  a  declara- 
tion that  here  and  now  a  complete  victory  over  sin  is 
the  believer's  privilege.* 

Paul  censures  the  Corinthians  for  their  unspirituality 
and  carnality,  because  it  would  have  been  untrue  to  the 
deepest  facts  of  consciousness  to  treat  their  defects  as 
the  unavoidable  outcome  of  an  incipient  Christianity. 
Nor  in  this  is  he  at  all  at  variance  with  the  practice  of 
Christ  Himself.  When  on  one  occasion  Jesus  says  to 
His  disciples,  "  I  have  many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but 
ye  cannot  bear  them  now,"  ^  He  no  doubt  acknowledges 
that  there  are  limitations  or  imperfections  which  are  not 
blameworthy,  and  which  necessarily  belong  to  the  earlier 
stages  of  knowledge  and  experience.  He  applies  this 
principle  to  the  disciples,  more  especially  because  it  was 
impossible  for  them  to  comprehend  many  of  the  truths 
of  His  Gospel  before  the  facts  on  which  the  truths  were 
based  had  occurred.  This  by  no  means  implies,  how- 
ever, that  their  actual  immaturity  of  spiritual  comprehen- 
sion had  not  been  rendered  greater  through  their  own 
fault,  or  that  He  acquiesces  in  it  as  a  morally  necessary 

^  On  this  antinomy  see  Note  33,  p.  450. 

2  I  cannot  but  think  that  Professor  Agar  Beet,  'J'/iq  Nczu  Life  in  Christ, 
Lect.  XIX.,  overstates,  in  some  of  his  expressions,  the  degree  in  which  the 
behever  actually  and  practically  realises  the  ideal  victory  which  is  his  in 
Christ.  "A  felt  tendency  to  evil,  trampled  under  our  feet  by  the  power  of 
God,"  if  by  this  is  meant  (as  the  argument  seems  to  suggest  as  possiljle,  p.  1 78) 
ahvays  trampled  and  suppressed,  is  no  description  of  the  real  stale  of  any 
Christian.  If  the  evil  tendency  is  only  sometimes,  though  increasingly,  over- 
come, then  Dr,  Beet  hardly  brings  out  the  essential  paradox  involved  in  uni- 
versal Christian  experience. 

^  John  xvi.  12. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation         271 

stage.^  Did  He  not  upbraid  them  for  their  lack  of  faith 
when  the  storm  arose,  and  for  the  hardened  heart  that 
failed  to  perceive  His  meaning  when  He  warned  them 
against  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  ?  ^  But  it  would  be 
as  reasonable  on  the  ground  of  these  reprimands  to 
charge  Jesus  with  conceiving  that  the  disciples'  faith  and 
spiritual  vision  ought  to  have  been  complete  from  the 
beginning,  as  to  charge  Paul  with  this  conception  of  the 
Christian  life. 

Very  different  views  may  be  held  as  to  the  value  of 
the  historical  setting  which  Paul  gives  to  his  teaching. 
It  is  therefore  of  supreme  moment  that  we  should 
recognise  that  the  Christian  doctrine  of  redemption  rests 
finally,  not  on  theories  of  what  man  was  or  was  not  in 
prehistoric  times,  but  on  the  indubitable  realities  of 
experience.  Whatever  the  primeval  state  of  humanity, 
certain  facts  are  clear  in  its  actual  condition ;  the  univer- 
sality of  moral  disorder,  and  the  testimony  of  conscious- 
ness, that  however  this  disorder  may  have  its  roots  in 
heredity  or  an  organic  bias  in  the  race,  it  involves  for 
each  soul  personal  wrong-doing  and  guilt.  But  this 
condition  is  precisely  what  Paul  describes  as  being 
"  under  the  law."  Though  he  writes  specially  in  view 
of  the  Mosaic  law,  where  the  lights  and  shadows  are 
both  deepened,  the  same  characteristics  belong  to  the 
struggle  of  the  savage  under  the  dim  rebukes  of  con- 
science. What  the  apostle  says  in  this  part  of  his 
argument  is  therefore  not  antiquarian,  but  of  permanent 
application  to  humanity.  The  return  to  God  invariably 
presents  itself  to  man  at  this  legal  stage  under  the  futile 

^  Cf.  Bruce,  St.  PauVs  Conception  of  Christianity ,  p.  355. 
2  Mark  iv.  40  ;  viii.  17. 


272  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

form  of  doing  something  for  God  which  will  propitiate 
Him.  But  the  law  slays  him,  and  there  never  is  perfect 
deliverance  for  him  until  he  finds  in  Christ  the  peace  of 
forgiveness  and  the  renewal  of  the  filial  will.  These  are 
the  two  ways  of  salvation  which  challenge  man's  choice : 
the  false  and  the  true.      There  is  no  other. 

Here,  then,  both  in  the  condemnation  of  the  law  and 
in    the    liberty   of   sonship,    we    are    on    the    ground    of 
experience.      Both    sides    verify    themselves.      It    is    far 
otherwise  with  the  facts  concerning  Adam  or  Abraham. 
They   lie  "  in   the   dark   backward   and   abysm   of  time." 
Whatever  they  were,  they  belong  to   a  past  that  has  no 
parallel   in   our  life.      The  special  purpose  for  which  the 
apostle  introduces  twice  so  elaborate  an  exposition  of  the 
promise  made  to  Abraham,  is  to  show  that  the  Jewish 
race  was  from  the  first  called  into  a  Covenant  of  Grace, 
and  that  therefore  the  law,  which  was  given  hundreds  of 
years  later,  was  subordinate  and  temporary  as  compared 
with  that  primary  revelation.^      This  method   of  demon- 
stration might  carry  great  weight  with  the  Jewish  mind, 
but  it  is  of  no  real  moment  to  us.      Of  two  forms  of  a 
divine    truth    or   revelation,   the    first   is    not   necessarily 
more  valuable  than  the  second.      The  superiority  of  the 
Gospel    does    not   lie    in    the    fact    that    it   was   vaguely 
adumbrated    long   before  the   promulgation    of  the  law. 
It  lies   in   its  essential  character.      Certainly  there  is  an 
impressive  cogency   in   the  fact  that  throughout  Jewish 
history    there    are    anticipations    and    suggestions,    ever 
growing  in  clearness,  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  deliver- 
ance yet  to  be  wrought  out  by  God  ;  but  to  recognise 
this   is  a  very  different  thing  from   staking  the  finality 

1  Vid.  Sabatier,  The  Apostle  Paul,  p.  146. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation         273 

of  faith  on  the  mere  point  of  priority.  Even  if  the  law 
had  preceded  the  promise,  that  would  not  have  endowed 
it  with  higher  value  or  greater  permanence.  There  is 
all  the  more  need  to  emphasise  this  in  view  of  modern 
reconstructions  of  the  Old  Testament  records.  Very 
curiously,  much  recent  criticism,  while  inverting  the 
Jewish  traditional  account  of  the  history,  retains  the 
same  order  which  Paul  traces  in  the  stages  of  Hebrew 
religion :  first  the  spiritual,  then  the  legal.  But  the 
spiritual  stage  for  it  is  not  represented  by  Abraham,  who 
becomes  somewhat  legendary,  but  partly  by  Moses  and 
chiefly  by  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century;  while  the 
developed  legalism  of  the  Hexateuch  is  assigned  to  the 
subsequent  time  of  Ezra.^  The  essential  thing  to  re- 
member is  that  no  altered  renderings  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment which  physical  science  or  criticism  may  necessitate 
can  ever  touch  the  abiding  force  of  Paul's  great  antithesis, 
to  which  in  the  deepest  sense  the  history  of  Israel  bears 
witness,  that  they  who  follow  after  the  law  of  righteous- 
ness do  not  attain  to  it,  but  that  the  requirement  of 
the  law  is  fulfilled  in  them  who  walk  after  the  Spirit.^ 
It  is  worth  while  to  note  in  passing,  how  closely 
allied  is  this,  the  essence  of  Paul's  Gospel,  to  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  Himself,  which  is  so  often  represented  as  remote 
from  it  in  spirit  and  method.  For  both,  the  one  end  is 
the  creation  in  man  of  the  filial  spirit.  For  both,  faith 
or  receptivity  is  the  only  true  attitude  towards  God.  In 
the  Gospels  this  truth  comes  out  above  all  in  two  forms : 
a  positive  and  a  negative.      The  note  which  Jesus  con- 

^  Cf.  Bruce,   Apologetics^  Book  II.,  especially  p.  170  and  chap.  vii.     See 
also  Professor  Robertson's  criticism  of  this  view,  Early  Religion  of  Israel, 
2  Rom.  ix.  31  ;  viii.  4. 


2  74  The  N'ew  Life  in  Christ  [Lcct. 

stantly  strikes   in    speaking   to    His    disciples   is  that  of 
trust  in  God  as  the  fundamental   requisite  of  right  con- 
duct and  inward  peace;  confidence  in  Him  and  openness 
to  the  influence  of  His  grace,  because  He  is  the  Father 
who  knows  what  things  we  have  need  of  before  we  ask 
Him.^      The   different  types   of  character    on   which   He 
pronounces  beatitudes  are  but  diverse  expressions  of  the 
filial  heart.      On  the  other  hand,  the  unbroken  severity 
of  His  denunciation  falls  upon  the  Pharisees,  in  whom 
legalism  had  not  merely  killed  the  filial  quality,  but  all 
desire  for  it,  all  recognition   of  it  as  highest   and   best. 
The   sympathy    which    astonishes    some    people    in    His 
treatment  of  those  who   had    fallen   under  the  sway  of 
fleshly  lust  springs    from   the    fact   that,  whatever  their 
faults,  they  had   not  buttressed   themselves  in   a  fancied 
independence  over  against  God  ;  they  had  lost  the  spirit 
of  sonship,    indeed,   but    they    had    not   repudiated    and 
despised    it.      They   had    still    the   possibilities    of  it    in 
them,  through  which    they   might  be  regained   to   peni- 
tence and   fellowship.^ 

This  is  exactly  Paul's  doctrine.  Yet  there  is  a 
difference.  Though  Christianity  is  a  unity,  it  contains, 
as  Mr.  Alexander  Knox  says,  two  sets  of  truths,  which 
may  be  denominated  the  ultimate  and  the  mediatory.^ 
The  former  refer  to  God  as  the  original  and  end,  union 
with  whom  is  life ;  the  latter  to  the  Word  made  flesh, 
through  whom  man  attains  to  and  realises  this  union. 
On  the  imperativeness  of  the  union,  and  on  the  spiritual 
attitude  in  man  which  conditions  it,  Christ  and  Paul 
speak    with    the    same    voice    and    emphasis.      But    the 

1  Matt.  vi.  8.  -  Matt.  xxi.  31. 

3  See  the  passage  quoted  in  Principal  Rainy's  Philippiatis,  p.  199. 


VII. ]        and  the  Co7iditions  of  its  Realisation        275 

mediatory  truths  receive  a  formal  and  explicit  expression 
in  Paul  which  is  not  found  in  the  Gospels,  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  the  mediation  was  then  in  process. 
The  primary  truths  and  the  mediatory  were,  so  to  speak, 
blended  in  the  revelation  which  God  gave  of  Himself 
in  Christ.  In  the  teaching  of  Jesus  the  accent  was  laid 
upon  the  former,  and  only  slowly  did  the  latter  come 
into  prominence  as  involved  in  them.  Yet  the  full 
conception  of  what  sonship  meant  was  only  reached 
through  the  completed  manifestation  in  life  and  death 
of  Christ's  Sonship,  which  at  once  revealed  the  ideal 
relation  of  man  to  God,  and  the  impossibility  of  man's 
attaining  it  except  through  the  one  unique  Son.  Hence, 
subsequently,  in  the  preaching  of  the  "  good  news,"  the 
mediatory  side  of  the  truth  was  necessarily  put  in  the 
foreground,  for  it  was  by  means  of  it,  by  means  of  what 
Christ  was  and  did,  that  the  true  idea  of  God,  and  of 
man  as  God's  child,  was  gained,  as  it  was  by  means  of 
it  also  that  its  realisation  was  effected. 

Nor  ought  we  to  forget  that  Paul  in  his  Epistles  is 
not  merely  proclaiming  the  Gospel,  but  expounding  it, 
showing  the  rationality  of  it  as  a  method  of  restoring 
the  human  to  the  fellowship  of  the  divine.  And  there- 
fore he  expends  much  of  his  force  on  questions  regarding 
the  conditions  on  both  sides  whereby  the  restoration  is 
attained.  This  leads  him  to  a  terminology  about 
justification  and  adoption  far  enough  apart  from  the 
simplicity  of  Christ's  utterance.  But  it  is  mere  blindness 
not  to  see  that  the  primary  truths  are  ever  before  him  as 
the  centre  and  goal,  that  amid  all  his  apparent  divaga- 
tions he  is  overwhelmed  by  the  sense  of  the  riches  of 
the  Fathei'^s  grace.      He  is   not  to  be   made  responsible 


276  The  JVeiu  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

for  those  falsely  claiming  his  name  and  example,  who,  as 
Dr.  Rainy  well  observes,  rehearse  the  way  of  salvation 
"  till  the  machinery  clanks  and  groans,"  and  all  true 
perception  is  lost  of  that  which  makes  the  Gospel  the 
power  of  God. 

Now,  as  the  ideal  state  of  man  would  have  been  one 
of  uninterrupted  receptivity  to  the  divine,  so  the  life  of 
sonship  which  is  born  in  him  through  the  spirit  of  Christ 
has  receptivity  for  its  permanent  characteristic.  As  it 
is  through  faith  that  it  is  begun  in  the  sinner,  so  it  is 
through  faith  that  it  is  nourished  and  can  alone  reach 
its  perfectness.  Personal  merit  no  more  attaches  to  the 
good  works  of  the  renewed  life  than  to  the  faith  that 
received  Christ  at  the  first.  If  it  did,  they  would  be  the 
works  of  the  law,  and  not  the  fruit  of  the  filial  spirit. 
Yet  the  idea  of  such  a  combination  of  the  spiritual  and 
the  legal  in  Christian  experience  is  only  too  common,  of 
the  spiritual  receptivity  which  leads  to  justification  and 
the  legal  activities  of  sanctification.  Self-contradictory 
and  fatal  as  it  is,  it  requires  no  effort  to  see  how  it  has 
arisen.  We  rightly  feel  that  the  initial  trust  in  Christ 
as  our  Saviour,  which  brings  us  acceptance  and  peace 
with  God,  contains  no  element  of  personal  desert.  But 
progress  in  holiness  involves  a  constant  and  arduous 
struggle,  a  putting  forth  of  moral  energy  to  overcome 
the  antagonisms  or  resist  the  seductions  of  evil.  The 
element  of  individual  will  and  force  so  indubitably  enters 
in,  that  we  are  almost  unconsciously  led  to  conceive  of 
it  as  operating  outside  of,  though  along  with,  the  divine 
influence.  It  is  only  when  the  human  is  passive  that  the 
divine  appears  fully  to  dominate  and  possess  it ;  when 
it   becomes  active,    it   seems    to   acquire    the   dignity    of 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        277 

a  real  and   independent,  though  lesser,  co-factor  with  the 
divine.      But  the  soul   is  not  simply  passive  in   the  faith 
whereby  it  receives   Christ.      The  upturned   look  at  the 
Crucified  which  saves,  is  a  forthgoing  of  the  self,  an  act 
of  self-committal.      In    yielding   the   heart    to    God,   we 
enrich    Him ;     we    give    Him    that   which    He   has    not 
already,  and  which  He  could  not  have  but  by  our  willing 
consent.     There  is  moral  energy  in  that,  though  in  an 
implicit  or  embryonic  form,  as  truly  as  in  the  fight  of 
faith  and   the  resolved   purpose  of  consecration.      Yet  if 
the  activity  of  the  soul  in  the  faith  that  justifies  supplies 
no  ground  for  "  boasting,"  neither  does  its  activity  in  the 
faith  that  sanctifies.     The  mere  fact  that  in  the  latter  it 
is  more  conscious,  pronounced,  and  continuous,  consti- 
tutes no  difference  in   the  principle    involved.      That   it 
appears  to  do  so,  is  due  to  the  incomplete  character  of 
our   union   with   God,   the   partial   extent  to  which   the 
spirit  of  sonship  has  permeated  our  being.      It  is  a  relic 
of  the  old  legalism  that  clings  to  us,  even  when  we  have 
repudiated  it.      "  The  perfected   spirits  of  the  just "  do 
not  count  their  unwearied  service  to  God  as  aught  but 
the   operation   of   His    life    in   them,  just   because   their 
filial  receptivity  is    complete.      In  one  sense  it  is   their 
high  prerogative,  as   it  is  ours  in  Christ,  to  contribute  ad 
majorem  Dei  gloriam.      But   this  increase  of  His  glory 
through   them   and    us    is   the   effectual  working  of  His 
Spirit.      That  the  agents  through  whom  He  thus  works 
are  self-conscious  and  spiritual,  is  no  subtraction  from  the 
completeness  of  their  dependence  on  Him.    It  is  only  such 
agents  that   in  the  fullest   measure  realise  in  themselves 
what  dependence  upon  God  is ;  it   is  only  they  who  are 
capable  of  receiving  and  communicating  His  personal  life. 


278  The  N'eiu  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

II.  This  new  life  in  Christ  is  no  mere  gift  of  God  to 
the  individual  man.  Having  for  its  central  note  the 
spirit  of  sonship,  it  is  a  revelation  to  him  of  humanity, 
and  of  his  relation  to  it.  The  blessing  he  has  received 
is  no  isolated  transaction  between  God  and  himself; 
it  carries  with  it  the  manifestation  of  God's  universal 
purpose  concerning  men.  The  consciousness  of  this 
may  to  some  degree  be  latent  in  the  act  of  faith's  first 
surrender ;  but  it  is  essentially  involved  in  it,  and  is 
bound  to  come  to  clear  recognition.  Christ  is  the 
Saviour  specially  of  those  that  believe,  because  He  is 
Saviour  of  all  men.  He  is  the  Lord  of  the  Church, 
because  He  has  redeemed   mankind. 

When  once  the  spirit  of  sonship  has  been  born  in  a 
man,  the  new  sense  of  his  relation  to  God  becomes  the 
dominant  factor  in  his  conception  of  life.  To  possess 
it  is  life's  one  felicity;  to  lack  it,  life's  dismal  failure. 
Association,  therefore,  with  those  who  like  himself  have 
responded  to  the  restoring  love  of  God  is  an  imperative 
instinct.  The  bond  which  unites  him  to  them  is  not  of 
his  making :  he  but  recognises  it.  Nor  has  he  anything 
to  do  with  creating  the  Society  which  is  the  expression 
of  it.  The  Church,  which  is  Christ's  Body,  is  already 
there :  he  has  but  to  make  its  fellowship  his  own.  It  is 
through  it  that  he  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  the  great 
historic  facts  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  Christian  faith  and 
hope.  The  New  Testament,  containing  the  record  of 
the  incarnate  Life  and  of  its  significance  for  human 
redemption,  is  the  product  of  the  Church's  earliest  experi- 
ence in  the  Spirit.  And  the  Church  which  produced 
the  record  is  itself  its  interpreter  to  mankind.  When  we 
speak  of  this  interpretation  we  are  apt  to  identify  it  very 


VII.]         and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation         279 

largely  with  the  formulation,  as  in  the  Nicene  Creed,  of 
the  central  truths  to  be  accepted,  and  with  the  continuous 
witness  which  the  Church  bears  to  them.  Indispensable, 
however,  as  such  a  formula  may  be,  as  guarding  against 
speculative  theories  which  in  their  consequence  would 
pervert  or  undermine  spiritual  life,  it  is  itself  intellectual 
rather  than  spiritual.  But  the  supreme  function  of  the 
Church  as  interpreter  is  to  reveal  the  mind  of  the  Spirit, 
to  unfold  the  meaning  of  the  new  life  of  which  believers 
partake,  and  make  it  a  power  in  the  individual  soul. 
And  this  it  does  through  its  teaching  and  sacraments, 
through  its  ministries  of  worship,  through  the  manifold 
activities  of  its  common  life.  The  Spirit  of  God  indeed 
works  in  universal  humanity,  breathing  where  He  listeth : 
but  as  the  organ  of  manifesting  the  redeeming  and  risen 
Lord,  He  uses  the  Church  as  the  medium  of  His  opera- 
tion. Through  the  Church,  as  the  bearer  of  the  historic 
message.  He  arrests  the  ignorant  and  the  impenitent ;  in 
the  Church  He  communicates  to  the  faithful  the  varied 
gifts  of  Christ's  fulness. 

On  three  several  occasions  ^  Paul  dwells  on  the 
diversity  of  endowments  conferred  on  the  members  of 
the  Church,  "  for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  unto  the 
work  of  the  ministering,  unto  the  edifying  of  the  body 
of  Christ."  They  were  bestowed,  not  merely  for  the  sake 
of  the  Church,  but  on  the  Church,  on  those  who  fulfilled 
the  conditions  of  its  fellowship,  and  laid  themselves  open 
to  the  influences  of  which  it  is  the  sphere  and  home. 
This  does  not  mean  that  identification  with  it  precedes 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit's  quickening  grace.  Paul  was 
called   to  be  an   apostle  while  he  still  stood   outside  the 

^  Rom.  xii.,  I  Cor.  xii.,  Eph.  iv. 


28o  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

Christian  communion.  But  the  existence  of  such  a 
communion  of  disciples  was  one  of  the  chief  factors  in 
reveaHng  Christ  to  him ;  and  the  illumination  and 
spiritual  power  which  fitted  him  for  his  apostolic  office 
only  became  his  because  he  united  himself  to  the 
Christian  fellowship  and  received  its  inspirations.  It 
was  not  only  the  sphere  of  his  labour,  but  the  sphere  of 
his  qualification  for  the  labour. 

With  the  apostles  baptism  into  the  name  of  Christ, 
as  the  sacrament  of  admission  into  the  Church,  was  an 
imperative  obligation  for  believers.  Whether  they  would 
have  denied  altogether  the  Christianity  of  a  man  who 
remained  unattached,  perhaps  we  can  hardly  say.  It 
was  a  question  which  never  arose  for  them.  In  their 
view  it  was  an  inconceivable  thing  that  anyone  could  be 
the  recipient  of  Christ's  grace,  and  yet  abstain  from  con- 
fessing Him,  or  fail  to  claim  with  joy  the  privilege  of 
His  people's  communion.  Moreover,  they  believed  that 
they  had  the  authority  of  Christ  Himself  for  the  necessity 
of  baptism ;  and  whatever  critical  difficulties  may  exist 
in  the  form  of  the  great  commission  delivered  to  the 
disciples  as  recorded  by  Matthew,^  it  is  most  improbable, 
as  Keim  says,  that  baptism  would  have  obtained  universal 
recognition  in  the  apostolic  Church,  and  especially  from 
Paul,  who,  as  an  independent  apostle,  ever  tended  to 
subordinate  the  formal  to  the  spiritual,  unless  the  ordi- 
nance had  been  known  to  possess  this  final  authority. 

Just  because  the  apostles  conceived  of  it  as  a  direct 
command  which  could  only  be  disobeyed  by  those  who 
disowned  the  lordship  of  Christ,  and  as  a  condition  of 
entrance  into  the  one  fellowship  where  the  new  life  could 

^  Chap,  xxviii.  19. 


VII.]        and  t lie  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        281 

be  fostered  or  even  preserved,  it  is  sometimes  spoken  of 
as  if  it  were  itself  the  means  whereby  the  new  Hfe  is 
born  in  the  soul.  Believers  are  "  buried  with  Christ  in 
baptism,  wherein  they  are  also  raised  with  Him  through 
faith  in  the  working  of  God."  "  As  many  of  you  as 
were  baptized  into  Christ  did  put  on  Christ."^  These 
and  similar  expressions  drawn  from  the  symbolism  of  the 
ordinance — the  burial  of  immersion,  the  rising  out  of  the 
water  of  cleansing,  the  putting  on  of  the  white  robe^  after 
baptism — have  been  made  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of 
baptismal  regeneration.  Such  a  rendering  is  in  flagrant 
contradiction  to  the  rest  of  Paul's  teaching,  where  faith 
or  receptivity  is  the  one  essential  method  of  spiritual 
renewal.  He  has  completed  his  whole  argument  as  to 
the  soul's  justification  in  the  first  five  chapters  of  Romans 
before  he  even  mentions  baptism,  and  that  incidentally, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  chapter  ;  and  its  force  would 
be  utterly  destroyed  if  he  meant  to  make  any  outward 
ceremony  a  condition  of  the  validity  of  faith  for  the 
securing  of  salvation.  The  reason  of  his  reference  to 
baptism  is  quite  clear.  He  is  repudiating  the  contention 
of  his  opponents,  that  his  doctrine  leads  to  licence  and 
self-indulgence.  He  replies  that  faith  is  no  formal  belief, 
but  the  profound  surrender  of  the  soul  to  Christ  whereby 
it  receives  His  Spirit ;  and  he  reminds  those  who  have 
grown  up  in  Judaism  or  heathenism  of  the  sacred  ordin- 
ance that  marked  their  transition  from  the  old  to  the 
new  life.  "  We  who  died  to  sin,  how  shall  we  any  longer 
live  therein  ?      Or  are  ye  ignorant  that  all  we  who  were 

^  Col.  ii.  12  (cf.  Rom.  vi.  3,  4)  ;  Gal.  iii.  27,  cf.  26. 

-  Some    thus   explain    the  use  of  the   word   euedvaacrOe.      See,   however, 
Lightfoot,  Galatians^  I.e. 


282  The  Nezv  Life  hi  C Insist  [Lect. 

baptized  into  Christ  Jesus  were  baptized  into  His 
death?  "^  He  emphasises  the  act  that  accompanied  the 
pubHc  profession,  not  as  the  instrument  of  the  change,  but 
as  its  representation  and  confirmation ;  just  as  Abraham 
received  the  sign  of  circumcision,  the  seal  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  faith  zvhich  he  had  while  he  was  in  uncircum- 
cision? 

The  solitary  allusion  in  Galatians  occurs  in  precisely 
the  same  connection.  Not  one  word  does  he  say  of 
baptism  when  he  is  setting  forth  the  very  essence  and 
heart  of  his  Gospel.  "  Ye  are  all  the  sons  of  God  through 
faith  in  Christ  Jesus."  Then  comes  the  reminder,  and 
the  appeal  founded  on  the  sacrament  that  proclaimed 
and  sealed  their  communion  with  Christ.  "  As  many  of 
you  as  were  baptized  into  Christ  did  put  on  Christ."^ 
But  though  baptism  is  not  necessary  for  faith's  validity, 
it  is  with  the  apostles  necessary  as  the  outcome  and 
expression  of  faith.  It  is  the  symbol  at  once  of  the  life 
which  the  individual  has  attained  in  Christ,  and  of  his 
recognition  that  he  shares  that  life  as  a  member  of 
the  new  humanity  of  which  Christ  is  the  head,  and  as 
thus  built  together  with  others  into  the  one  holy  temple 
which  is  the  habitation  of  God  in  the  Spirit. 

No  one  will  dispute  the  high  function  assigned  in  the 
New  Testament  to  the  Church  as  the  school  and  home 
of  the  Christian  life.  Three  senses  have  been  distin- 
guished in  Paul's  use  of  the  word — the  local  community 
of  believers,  as  the  Church  in  Thessalonica  or  Corinth ; 
the  totality  of  Christians*  throughout  the  world,  or  the 

^  Rom.  vi.  3.  -  Rom.  iv.  ii.  ^  Gal.  iii.  27. 

^  The  totality  of  Christian  believers  ;  not,  properly,  of  local  Churches — 
"The  members  which  make  up  the  One  Ecclesia  are  not  communities  but 


VII.]        mtd  the  Conditio7is  of  its  Realisation        283 

Church  universal ;  and  the  ideal  or  mystical  Church,  of 
which  he  speaks  in  Colossians  and  Ephesians,  and  which 
is  the  fulness  or  perfected  body  of  Christ.  The  first  or 
local  application,  however,  is  a  mere  matter  of  con- 
venience as  among  ourselves.  The  Church  is  of  its 
essence  Catholic,  and  knows  no  restrictions  of  time  or 
place;  and  its  character  as  a  unity  perpetually  appears 
in  Paul's  Epistles  even  in  connection  with  the  more 
limited  usage  of  the  term.^  When  he  speaks  of  it  in  the 
two  latter  aspects,  the  universal  and  the  ideal,  he  does 
not  present  them  in  any  antagonism  to  one  another,  as 
the  Reformers  did,  by  distinguishing  the  visible  from  the 
invisible  Church.  The  contrast  in  the  mind  of  the  Re- 
formers was  between  that  which  appears  and  that  which 
is\  between  the  professing  Church  and  the  real  one. 
It  was  forced  upon  them  by  the  breaking-up  of  the  old 
outward  unity,  by  the  saintly  souls  who  stood  outside 
the  ancient  communion,  by  the  faithlessness  and  corrup- 
tion too  manifest  within  it.  But  no  such  opposition 
exists  in  Paul's  thought.  Unquestionably  we  can  trace 
a  difference  in  his  application  of  the  word  ;  but  it  is  a 
contrast,  not  between  a  present  formal  Church  and  a 
present  real  one,  but  between  a  real  Church  as  it  at 
present  is  and  as  it  has  yet  to  be — between  the  Church 
in  progress  and  the  Church  made  perfect. 

The  problem,  of  which  we  are  only  too  conscious,  of 
the  existence  of  the  devout  outside  the  Church  and  the 
unworthy  within  it,  is  one  which  does  not  press  upon 
him.      In  the  apostolic   age  the  believer   inevitably  took 

individual  men.  The  One  Ecclesia  includes  all  members  of  all  partial 
Ecclesioe;  but  its  relations  to  them  all  are  direct,  not  mediate."  Hort,  The 
Christian  Ecclesia,  p.  i68. 

*  I  Cor.  i.  2.     Cf.  Hort,  ibid.  pp.  102,  103,  108-122. 


284  The  Nezv  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

his  place  by  public  profession  and  identification  with  his 
fellow  Christians  as  against  the  prevailing  heathenism  ; 
so  that,  practically,  those  who  held  aloof  from  baptism 
were  aliens  at  heart.  And  as  regards  unworthy  members 
the  apostle  feels  that  they  will  either  be  regained  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  ruling  in  the  Christian  community,  or, 
if  persistently  impenitent,  will  be  separated  by  the  same 
Spirit  from  the  outward  fellowship.^  But  these  excep- 
tions do  not  lead  him  to  think  of  the  Church  as  an 
outward  and  imperfect  representation  of  the  one  com- 
munity of  believers.  It  is  itself  this  community,  the 
body  of  Christ.  Whatever  defects  it  has,  do  not  prevent 
it  from  being  the  chosen  organ  and  sphere  of  His  Spirit's 
work.  It  is  this  Church  existent  in  time,  in  which  when 
purified  and  complete  Paul  beholds  the  bride  of  Christ, 
the  consummation  of  the  mystery  of  God's  will,  and  the 
gathering  to  a  unity  of  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth.- 
He  sees  the  ideal  Church,  not  apart  from  the  actual,  but 

in  it. 

On  the  question  of  the  form  and  organisation  of  the 
Church,  not  much  that  is  decisive,  except  in  a  negative 
way,  can  be  drawn  from  the  New  Testament.  Pre- 
eminent as  was  the  authority  of  the  apostles,  it  was 
essentially  of  a  spiritual  rather  than  an  ecclesiastical 
character.  They  did  not  even  co-opt  into  their  own 
body  a  successor  to  Judas.  Matthias  was  appointed  by 
the  assembled  brethren  ;  ^  the  seven  deacons  by  the 
multitude  of  disciples.*  The  whole  Church  united  with 
the  apostles  and  elders  in  designating  the  delegates  to 

1  Vid.  Beyschlag,  N.T.  Theology,  vol.  ii.  p.  231. 

2  Eph.  V.  25-27  ;  i.  10,  22,  23. 

»  Acts  i.  15,  26.  ■*  Acts  vi.  2-6, 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        285 

Antioch.i      Paul  writes  throughout  his  Epistles  with  the 
consciousness  of  apostolic  authority  ;  but  even  when   he 
emphasises  that,  he  repudiates  lordship  over  the  faith  of 
others.2     The  various  functions   conferred  by  Christ  on 
His   Church  are  several  times    mentioned,^  but  the  lists 
vary  in   detail,  showing  that   there   was    no    definite    or 
acknowledged    order    of    subordination.      Moreover,   the 
functions    spoken    of    are    far    more    endowments    than 
offices  ;*  gifts  of  the   Spirit  bestowed  for  mutual  service. 
That  the  apostles  transmitted,  or  professed  to  transmit, 
their  authority,  which  was  due  to  the  special  illumination 
of  the  Spirit,  is  quite  incapable  of  Scriptural  or  historical 
proof;  and,  as  has  been  well  said,  "  to  be   not  proven  is, 
in  claims  of  this  sort,  to  be  found   not  true."^      But  even 
if  this  were  proved,  it  does  not  carry  with  it  in  the  least 
degree  the  sacerdotal   conception  of  the   Church.      None 
of  the   apostles    lays    claim    to   any  sacerdotal  function, 
though  as  Jews  they  were  "  steeped  in  the  associations  of 
sacerdotal   worship " ;    and    they    could    hardly    transmit 
what  they  did   not  possess.      It  is  in  vain  to  argue  that 
"  as  the  teaching  function  of  the  whole  Church  does  not 
militate   against   the   special    order   of  teachers,    so    the 
priestly  function  of  the  whole  does   not  militate  against 
a  special  order  of  priests."  ^     The  words  "  priestly  "  and 
"  priests  "  are  here  used  in  totally  different  senses.      The 
Church  is  a  priesthood ;   it  carries   on   a  perpetual  work 
of  intercession  for  mankind.      And  every  member  of  it  is 
through    Christ  a  priest  unto   God,  offering  himself  up, 

1  Acts  XV.  12,  22.  2  2  Cor.  i.  24 ;  cf.  i  Cor.  iii.  5. 

^  Rom.  xii.  4  ft. ;  i  Cor.  xii.  28-30;  Eph.  iv.  11  ft". 

*  See  Note  34,  p.  459,  '*  The  Xapia/xara  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles." 

^  Fairbairn,  Christ  in  Alodern  Theology,  p.  531, 

®  Lock,  in  Lux  Mundi,  p.  393. 


2  86  The  JVezv  Life  in  Chinst  [Lect. 

through  the  power  of  the  one  perfect  Sacrifice,  in  prayer 
and  praise  to  God,  and  in  service  for  his  brethren.  In 
that  sense  the  minister  of  Christ  ought  to  be  pre- 
eminently a  priest  by  bearing  on  his  heart  the  people's 
need  before  God.  But  his  priesthood  is  a  spiritual 
service ;  and  when  it  is  made  into  a  sacerdotal  office, 
through  which  the  validity  of  the  sacraments  is  guaran- 
teed, the  whole  argument  from  the  general  to  the 
specialised  priesthood  falls  to  the  ground.  It  could  only 
apply  if  the  word  "  priest "  had,  like  the  word  "  teaching," 
the  same  meaning  for  the  Church  and  for  the  special 
order.^ 

Indeed,  as  to  ecclesiastical  administration,  the  New 
Testament  supplies  us  neither  with  a  definite  form  of 
polity  nor  with  a  directory  of  worship  ;  and  it  is  only 
when  we  perceive  that  it  was  not  its  purpose  to  do  so 
that  we  rise  to  the  idea  of  the  unity  and  spirituality 
of  the  Church  as  the  apostles  conceived  it.  Hooker  ^ 
has  demonstrated  once  for  all  the  absurdity  of  divorcing 
Scripture  from  other  sources  of  divine  light  and  truth, 
and  of  treating  it  when  so  divorced  as  an  exclusive 
guide.  Because  the  Church  has  now  organised  itself 
more  elaborately  than  in  apostolic  days,  it  may  not  be 
the  worse  but  the  better  for  that.  Nor  is  it  any  proof 
because  one  section  of  it  prefers  to  be  governed  by 
presbytery  and  another  by  bishops,  that  either  the  one 
section  or  the  other  is  wrong.  Diversities  of  administra- 
tion in  the  Church   as   in  nations  have  their  roots  deep 

^  On  the  causes  that  gave  rise  to  the  sacerdotal  conception  of  the  Church, 
see  Lightfoot's  well-known  essay,  in  his  Philippians,  on  "The  Christian 
Ministry." 

-  Eccles.  Polity,  Book  II.;  vid.  Dean  Church's  edition  of  Book  I.  Preface, 
p.  1 6. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        287 

down  in  the  divergences  of  human  character  and 
training.  And  the  same  Spirit  may  work  equally, 
through  these  divergent  types  of  character,  towards 
different  forms  of  polity  as  well  as  towards  different 
spheres  of  personal  service.-*-  The  absence  from  Scripture 
of  any  prescribed  order,  and  the  varieties  of  administra- 
tion approved  by  men  alike  submissive  to  Scripture 
authority  and  to  the  best  teachings  of  history  and 
experience,  are  the  most  conclusive  evidence  that  diversity 
is  not  a  mark  in  communities  any  more  than  in  indi- 
viduals of  disloyalty  to  the  Lord.  The  one  real  sin 
against  the  unity  of  the  Church  is  the  spirit  which  would 
exclude  from  its  fellowship  any  who  confess  Christ  as 
Head,  and  own  the  common  brotherhood  in  Him. 

In  a  true  sense  we  may  call  the  Church  the  Exten- 
sion of  the  Incarnation,  not  only  because  it  is  the  human 
body  in  which  the  divine  manifests  itself,  but  because 
it  is  the  true  Christopher,  the  bearer  through  the  Spirit 
of  the  incarnate  risen  One.  Christ,  whose  presence 
sanctifies  and  fills  it,  is  not  simply  the  divine  Lord  but 
the  ascended  Son  of  Man,  who,  by  taking  the  manhood 
into  God,  has  become  the  source  and  centre  of  the  new 
humanity.  This  truth — that  the  whole  Christ,  human 
as  well  as  divine,  is  communicated  to  the  faithful — is 
caricatured  rather  than  represented  by  Roman  Catholicism 
in  its  doctrine  of  the  Mass.  It  is  not  in  the  Sacrament 
of  the  Holy  Supper  alone  that  He  thus  imparts  Himself 
to  the  believer,  but  in  every  act  of  the  soul's  surrender. 
But   such   a  receptive   attitude  of  soul  depends  upon   a 

^  Vid.  Bruce,  Kingdom  of  God,  p.  270  ;  Fairbairn,  ibid.  :  "  The  people 
are  primary,  the  poHty  is  secondary,  and  the  poHty  which  best  articulates  the 
religion  for  the  people  and  best  organises  the  people  for  the  purposes  of  the 
religion,  is  for  the  time  and  place  the  best  polity  "  (p.  547). 


288  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

constant  abiding  in  the  communion  of  saints.  He  who 
cuts  himself  off  from  that  is  in  grave  danger  of  losing 
his  heritage. 

III.  While,  however,  the  Church  is  the  home  where 
the  spiritual  life  is  fed  and  quickened,  and  the  organ 
through  which  it  attains  its  corporate  expression,  it  is 
by  no  means  the  total  sphere  in  which  it  realises  itself. 
For  that  life  is  not  something  apart  from  the  ordinary 
life  of  man,  but  the  renewing  spirit  which  takes  posses- 
sion of  and  transfigures  the  contents  of  universal  human 
experience.  The  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  is  not 
meant  to  supplant  His  prior  revelations  of  Himself  in 
nature  and  in  man.  It  takes  account  of  them,  and  is 
built  upon  them.  The  materials  with  which  it  deals 
are  already  given  in  the  primary  instincts  of  humanity 
which  have  created  the  Family  and  the  State ;  which 
have  bound  men  in  innumerable  bonds  of  social  inter- 
course ;  which  have  impelled  them  to  intellectual  and 
artistic  achievement.  In  proportion  as  it  disparages 
any  of  the  fundamental  affections  and  aspirations  of 
man's  nature,  it  impairs  its  own  greatness,  and  abdicates 
its  supreme  place  as  the  one  unifying  and  consecrating 
principle  which  at  once  assigns  to  each  its  proper 
function  and  inspires  it  with  fresh  vigour.  No  doubt 
it  subordinates  the  natural  qualities  and  tendencies  to 
the  higher  truth  it  reveals.  It  will  not  accord  to  any 
of  them,  be  they  emotional  or  intellectual,  the  first  place, 
just  because  it  declares  that  they  do  not  exist  for  them- 
selves, but  as  parts  and  phases  of  a  human  life  whose 
first  condition  of  blessedness  is  a  right  relation  to  God, 
the  unity  of  all.  But  though  thus  denying  to  them 
a  false  independence  and  supremacy,  it  does  not  lessen 


VII.]        and  the  Co7iditions  of  its  Realisation         289 

but  heighten  their  value,  by  supplying  them  with  new 
motives  and  loftier  aims.  What  the  Cavalier  poet  says 
of  one  natural  impulse  is  true  of  all — 

"  I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honour  more." 

They  gain  an  unimagined  glory  from  the  presence  of  the 
divine  into  whose  allegiance  they  have  passed. 

Yet  all  history  shows  how  difficult  it  is  to  rise  to 
this   conception.      In   all  ages  in   which   the  redemption 
of  Christ  has  been  deeply  realised   as  a  delivering  and 
dominant    power    in    the    soul,  it  has   tended    to  assert 
itself   as    much    by    suppressing,  as    by   informing   and 
transmuting,  the  natural.      Men  found   that  it  was  much 
easier  to  be  loyal   to   Christ's  claims,  as   they  conceived 
them,   if  they  surrendered  certain  parts  of  life,  if  they 
quenched   impulses    and  turned   aside  from  occupations 
which    did    not    seem    to    minister    directly   to    spiritual 
growth.       The    monastic    ideal    of    Christian    character 
demanded  total  severance  from  domestic  ties  and  from 
the   ordinary   relations   and   engagements   of  society,   in 
order  to  attain   absolute  concentration   on   the  things  of 
God.      Protestantism,  again,  while  refusing  to  allow  that 
the  higher  religious   life  was   thus  only  attainable  under 
conditions    impossible    to    the    mass    of    mankind,    and 
affirming  the  sanctities  of  home  and   public   affairs,  in- 
troduced   an    asceticism    of    its    own.       Grasping    with 
overwhelming  force  the  great  truth  of  the  responsibility 
of  each  soul  to  God,  and  construing  all  human  experience 
in    terms    of  moral    intensity,  it   led   to  too  restricted   a 
conception  of  duty.      Its  most  strenuous   representatives, 
both   in   Great   Britain   and   on   the   Continent,  to  whom 
19 


290  The  Nezv  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

monasticism  was  most  abhorrent,  carried  into  the 
world  which  they  claimed  for  God  the  monastic  temper. 
Their  bent  by  nature  was  towards  the  energetic  rather 
than  the  meditative;  and  to  the  energetic  side  of  character 
they  gave  free  play.  They  told  with  incomparable 
effect  in  war,  in  statesmanship,  in  social  reform.  Filled 
with  the  consciousness  of  God,  they  were  driven  forward 
to  make  His  will  prevail  on  earth.  They  fought  the 
battles  of  the  Lord ;  they  laboured  to  build  up  a  theo- 
cratic commonwealth ;  they  threw  themselves  into  great 
philanthropic  causes.  The  same  indomitable  vigour  made 
them  pioneers  in  trade  and  commerce.  But  in  this 
sphere  the  Puritan  was  constantly  haunted  with  an 
uneasy  sense  that  he  was  giving  too  much  time  and  toil 
to  what  had  no  reference  to  his  own  divine  calling. 
The  work  he  was  doing  seemed  too  worldly,  and  yet 
he  was  borne  into  it  by  an  irresistible  practical  instinct. 
So  he  strove  to  reconcile  himself  to  it,  either  by  using 
the  wealth  thus  acquired  for  spiritual  ends,  or  by  a 
frequent  and  rigid  observance  of  the  acts  of  Christian 
worship  and  fellowship.  The  lighter  and  more  genial 
qualities  of  social  intercourse,  its  amenities  and  amuse- 
ments, were  frowned  upon  as  frivolous.  They  could 
not  live  in  that  severe  air.  He  condemned  or  dis- 
paraged the  speculative  and  aesthetic  interests  of 
humanity.  The  philosopher,  the  artist,  the  poet,  were 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  but  spending  their  strength  for 
naught,  and  diverting  the  thoughts  of  men  from  the 
true  aim  of  human  life.  The  vivacious  epigram  of 
Matthew  Arnold,  that  the  English  middle-class  "  entered 
the  prison  of  Puritanism "  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
"and  had  the  key  turned  on  its  spirit  there  for  two  hundred 


vu.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        291 

years,"  "^  has  certainly  an  element  of  exaggeration.  It 
is  written  from  the  outsider's  point  of  view.  None  the 
less  it  contains  an  abiding  truth.  The  Puritan  had, 
indeed,  deep  sources  of  joy  of  which  the  world  knew 
nothing.  His  existence  was  not  passed  under  an  oppres- 
sion of  gloom.  But  his  religion  did  violence  to  human 
nature  as  God  made  it,  by  evicting  impulses  and  aspirations 
which  it  ought  to  have  assimilated  and  utilised  for  God. 
The  error  of  the  monastic  and  Puritan  ideals  alike,  is 
that  they  regard  that  alone  as  having  a  religious  value 
which  has  an  immediate  religious  reference.  They  do 
not  recognise  that  the  Christian  life  is  fostered  by  every- 
thing that  tends  to  enrich  the  character.  But  character 
is  not  moulded  merely  by  the  conscious  heroisms  of 
supreme  moments  when  the  forces  of  good  and  evil  are 
openly  marshalled  for  conflict ;  it  is  created  perhaps 
more  by  the  smaller  fidelities  which  every  hour  demands, 
by  the  inevitable  trials  to  constancy  and  unselfishness 
which  befall  men 

"  In  the  very  world  which  is  the  world 
Of  all  of  us."  2 

When  the  prodigal  awakes  once  more  to  his  sonship,  and 
returns  to  the  Father's  house,  he  returns  to  all  the  duties 
of  his  restored  relationship  ;  and  it  is  through  these  that 
his   sonship   is   perfected.      The   filial   feeling  which   has 

"'-  Essays  in  Criticism,  First  Series,  p.  176. 

2  Wordsworth,  Prelude,  Book  XI.     Cf.  Browning,  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap 
Country  : — 

"  One  place  performs,  like  any  other  place, 
The  proper  service  every  place  on  earth 
Was  framed  to  furnish  man  with  ;  serves  alike 
To  give  him  note,  that  through  the  place  he  sees 
A  place  is  signified  he  never  saw." 


292  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

been  requickened  in  him  is  not  a  substitute  for  them, 
maintaining  an  isolated  existence  of  its  own,  or  expressing 
itself  merely  or  chiefly  in  direct  acts  of  realised  fellowship 
with  God.  So  far  as  it  strives  to  be  so,  it  becomes  limited 
and  overstrained.  As  surely  as  in  metaphysical  language, 
"  conceptions  without  perceptions  are  empty,"  so  surely 
the  spiritual  life  has  to  go  outside  of  itself  for  its  content, 
to  lay  hold  of  the  activities  and  relations  of  earth  for  its 
self-realisation.  And  the  more  widely  it  appropriates 
these,  the  more  predominant  and  victorious  it  is. 

Manifestly,  the  completest  Christian  character  would 
be  that  which  did  justice  to  the  natural  instincts  for 
business,  for  recreation,  for  friendship,  for  thought ;  which 
did  not  require  the  suppression  of  any  of  them,  in  order 
to  keep  its  divine  sonship,  but  used  them  all  as  organs 
for  its  fuller  expression.  This  does  not  imply  that  our 
relation  to  God  is  always  consciously  present.  The  work 
which  we  are  doing  may  so  absorb  us  as  practically  to 
exclude  everything  else ;  and  such  concentration  is  one 
of  the  essential  conditions  of  a  fully  discharged  duty. 
Ever  and  anon,  indeed,  there  must  come  to  the  sur- 
rendered soul  pauses  of  self-recollection  and  blessed  com- 
muning. But  its  loyalty  to  Christ  does  not  depend  upon 
its  continual  consciousness  of  His  nearness,  but  upon  the 
doing  of  His  will  as  revealed  to  it  by  the  demands  of  its 
allotted  place  and  its  own  fitness  to  meet  them.^  Much 
of  the  best  service  done  for  Christ  is  of  this  indirect 
character.  Some  of  it  may  involve  little  reference  to  His 
name,  and  yet  be  swayed  and  penetrated  by  His  living 
Spirit.      The  very  absence   from  it  of  all   claim  to  repre- 

^  See  Note  35,  p.  460,    "  Unconscious  actions  as  the  sustaining  power  of 
faith." 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        293 

sent  Flim  endows  it,  if  I  may  say  so,  with  a  special 
religious  power.  It  prepares  the  way  for  His  coming 
in  hearts  that  the  world  has  secularised,  by  the  heighten- 
ing and  ennoblement  of  common  experience  ;  it  interprets 
the  largeness  of  His  fellowship  to  those  who  only  con- 
ceive of  it  as  a  narrow  spiritualism.  In  speaking  of  his 
Roman  History,  Dr.  Arnold  says :  "  My  highest  ambition, 
and  what  I  hope  to  do  as  far  as  I  can,  is  to  make  it  the 
reverse  of  Gibbon  in  this  respect,  that  whereas  the  whole 
spirit  of  his  work,  from  its  low  morality,  is  hostile  to 
religion,  without  speaking  directly  against  it ;  so  my 
greatest  desire  would  be  in  my  History,  by  its  high 
morals  and  its  general  tone,  to  be  of  use  to  the  cause, 
without  actually  bringing  it  forward."  ^  To  act  thus 
seems  to  many  to  veil  God  ;  it  is  much  rather  to  reveal 
Him.  For  such  work,  whether  in  literature,  art,  or  life, 
carries  its  subtle  purifying  influence  where  the  obtrusion 
of  religious  teaching  would  but  alienate.  It  is  both  a 
prcBparatio  ev angelica  and  a  conjinnatio  ev angelica.  And 
if  it  has  this  winning  and  confirming  power  for  others,  it 
has  it  also  for  the  man  himself.  He  toils  at  his  task, 
loses  himself  in  it ;  and  when  the  struggle  is  over,  wakes 
up  to  find  that  the  divine  is  more  to  him  than  before. 
The  seed  has  sprung  up,  he  knows  not  how. 

"  Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free  ; 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew."  - 

Nothing  has   tended    more  to  obscure   the  value   of 
this   indirect   service   of    God    than   a  false  view  of   the 

^  Life,  by  Stanley,  vol.  i.  p.  185. 

2  The  Problem,  by  Emerson.     Cf.  Wordsworth's  Ode  to  Duty — 

"  Glad  hearts  !  without  reproach  or  blot  ; 

Who  do  thy  work,  and  know  it  not." 


294  The  Neii)  Life  in  Ch7'ist  [Lect. 

example  set  before  us  in  Christ's  own  life.  During  the 
two  or  three  years  of  His  ministry  He  moves  through 
the  land  unentangled  by  earthly  affairs,  with  no  fixed 
home,  never  alluding  to  politics  or  trade,  except  to  dwell 
on  their  moral  bearings ;  turning  all  His  intercourse  with 
men  into  a  means  of  expounding  and  establishing  the 
kingdom  of  God.  What  more  natural  than  for  many 
whom  His  message  enthralled  and  gladdened  than  to 
say,  *  That  is  the  type  and  model  for  us ;  happiest  are 
those  who  can  reproduce  that  life,  even  down  to  its 
details ;  the  next  best  thing  is  to  approximate  to  it  as 
far  as  may  be.'  No  one  can  deny  the  spiritual  beauty 
and  the  ethical  strength  of  which  this  thought  of  a  literal 
following  of  Jesus  has  been  the  inspiration,  from  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi  taking  Poverty  as  a  bride,  down  to  the 
self-sacrificing  souls  who  are  jealous  of  every  interest  or 
engagement  that  does  not  plainly  subserve  a  religious  use 
for  themselves  or  others.  Yet  it  rests  upon  a  miscon- 
ception. It  overlooks  the  lesson  of  the  silent  years  in 
Nazareth,  when  Jesus  was  to  His  fellow-townsmen,  not 
the  moral  reformer,  but  simply  "  the  carpenter."  ^  And 
still  more,  it  fails  to  perceive  that  the  form  of  Christ's  life 
in  His  public  ministry  was  determined  by  His  mission. 
He  had  a  special  and  unique  work  given  Him  to  do — the 
redemption  of  mankind,  the  revelation  in  His  own  person  of 
the  divine  life  which  He  brought.  Everything,  therefore, 
He  said  or  did  necessarily  converged  on  what  was  directly 
spiritual.  It  was  not  His  function  to  teach  philosophy  or 
science,  or  to  take  part  in  political  movements  ;  but  to  in- 
troduce a  new  power  into  human  life  which  would  restore 
it  to  moral  harmony.      His  abstinence   from   many  kinds 

^  Mark  vi.  3. 


VII.]        and  the  Conditions  of  its  RealisafAon        295 

of  intellectual  and  practical  activity  is  no  more  to  be 
regarded  as  a  condemnation  of  them,  than  His  restriction 
of  His  career  to  one  land  and  people  is  a  disparagement 
of  other  countries  and  nations  that  He  never  knew. 

A  man's  reception  of  Christ's  Spirit  does  not  of  itself 
reveal  to  him  what  his  function  in  the  world  is,  the 
shape  which  his  life's  work  should  assume.  That  is  to 
be  determined  primarily  by  his  individual  endowment, 
his  training,  his  circumstances.  When  spiritual  renewal 
comes  to  him,  it  interprets  these  for  him,  shows  their 
place  and  meaning  in  the  light  of  God's  purpose ;  but 
they  still  remain  the  basis  on  which  the  judgment  of 
duty  must  be  formed.  He  who  devotes  himself  to  the 
proclaiming  of  the  Christian  message  or  to  philanthropy 
is  not  necessarily  more  religious  than  the  poet  who,  like 
Wordsworth,  "dwells  apart,"  that  he  may  reveal  the 
lessons  which  the  soul  may  learn  from  nature  and 
humanity  by  a  "  wise  passiveness."  Doubtless  there  is 
something  in  a  life  spent  in  missionary  or  beneficent  toil 
which  more  immediately  suggests  the  image  of  Christ, 
and  which  from  its  constant  commerce  with  others' 
needs  affords  apparently  nobler  and  fuller  conditions 
of  spiritual  growth.  But  it  may  be  that,  in  God's  eye, 
as  high  a  consecration  attaches  to  those  dedicated  spirits 
who,  in  many  a  field  of  lonely  research  and  artistic 
aspiration,  strive  with  incessant  self-denial  after  the 
perfecting  of  the  gifts  committed  to  them  for  the  dis- 
covery of  truth  or  the  revelation  of  beauty.-^ 

It  is  not  our  part  to  settle  the  order  of  precedence 

^  Cf.  A.  C.  Benson,  Essays,  pp.  178  f.  "The  message  that  we  are  in 
need  of  is  something  that  will  introduce  the  loving  simplicity  of  the  Christian 
revelation  into  the  world  of  beauty ;   for  comprehensive  as  that  revelation 


296  The  New  Life  in  Christ  [Lect. 

among  the  varied  servants  of  God ;  but  it  is  for  us  to 
see  that  Christianity  is  not  so  construed  as  to  lose  its 
comprehensive  quality  as  the  reconciliation  of  all  things. 
That  is  the  fate  which  befalls  it  when  no  allowance  is 
made  for  the  diversities  of  talent  and  disposition  ;  when 
the  piety  of  a  child  is  expected  to  have  the  same  sense 
of  sin  and  utter  self-abasement  that  marks  the  recovered 
prodigal ;  when  the  man  of  delicate  sensibility,  who  loves 
quiet  ways  and  walks  humbly  with  his  God,  who  cannot 
"  trust  his  melting  soul  but  in  his  Maker's  sight,"  ^  is 
despised  as  a  worthless  disciple  compared  with  his  prac- 
tical neighbour  who  prosecutes  an  unwearied  evangelism. 
There  is  an  ever- recurring  tendency  in  the  Church,  and 
most  of  all  in  those  periods  when  it  revives  to  fresh 
earnestness,  to  draw  sharp  lines  between  the  permissible 
and  the  forbidden  in  common  relations  or  enjoyments. 
The  result,  admirable  though  the  motive  may  be  which 
leads  to  it,  is  almost  invariably  to  create  a  forced  and 
unnatural  kind  of  religion,  which  is  not  always  free  from 
hypocrisy,  and  is  only  too  frequently  marred  by  a  jealous 
uncharitableness.  Happily  the  reaction  is  sure  to  come ; 
the  expelled  qualities  reassert  themselves,  and  claim  their 
right  to  expression.  They  are  saved  by  "  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation  in  humanity,"  which  refuses  to  rest 
finally  in  any  revelation  of  God  in  grace  which  does 
not  presuppose   His   revelation   in  nature. 

It  is  sometimes  said  with   a  sneer  that  the   Church 

claims  to  be,  it  is  difiicult  to  define  the  exact  place  which  is  reserved  for 
hearts  haunted  by  the  tyrannical  instinct  of  beauty.  Such  a  life  as  Blake's  is 
an  attempt  at  the  reconciliation  of  the  matter.  He  seems  to  get  nearer  the 
divine  principle  than  many  professed  religionists;  as  he  himself  wrote,  *T 
have  laboured  hard  indeed,  and  been  borne  on  angels'  wings.'  " 
1  Christian  Year,  Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent. 


VII.  1        and  the  Conditions  of  its  Realisation        297 

shows  a  marvellous  power  of  adapting  itself  to  new 
conditions,  of  assimilating,  and  applying  to  its  own  ends, 
truths  or  facts  which  it  repudiated  or  ignored  as  long 
as  possible.  Under  pressure  from  without,  the  critics 
tell  us,  it  has  been  compelled  to  suffuse  its  doctrine  of 
individual  salvation  with  the  nobler  social  spirit  of 
modern  times ;  to  accord  to  physical  science,  its  old 
enemy,  a  place  in  the  revelation  of  God.  But  the 
Church  could  have  had  no  such  capacity  of  appropriation 
if  the  message  with  which  Christ  entrusted  it  had  not 
been  really  larger  than  was  once  dreamt  of.  The 
adequacy  of  the  Christian  faith  to  meet  the  demands 
of  the  human  spirit  was  there  from  the  first ;  it  was  the 
Church's  interpretation  that  failed.  Nor  ought  we  to 
wonder  that  it  has  been  so,  considering  the  immensity 
of  the  task  which  the  Church  had  to  discharge.  The 
human  conditions  under  which  the  Christian  faith  was 
first  promulgated  were  entirely  different  from  those  to 
which  it  had  to  be  applied.  It  rose  among  a  Semitic 
people,  was  wrought  into  the  forms  of  their  imaginative 
and  emotional  type  of  thought,  and  was  enshrined  in 
records  that  bore  the  stamp  of  Oriental  moods  and 
manners.  But,  passing  from  its  ancient  home  into 
Europe,  it  has  had  to  confront  races  whose  traditions, 
cast  of  mind,  and  social  customs  belong  to  another 
order.  What  marvel  if  the  Church  found  itself  puzzled 
in  the  presence  of  Western  philosophy,  science,  and  art, 
as  to  what  position  it  should  assume  towards  them,  as 
to  how  far  it  could  recognise  them,  in  loyalty  to  the 
Gospel,  of  whose  indispensableness  it  was  persuaded  by 
an  indubitable  inward  witness?  It  naturally  viewed  with 
suspicion  intellectual  interests  and   processes  that  threat- 


298  The  New  Life  in  Christ  fLect.  vii. 

ened  to  alienate  men's  minds  from  the  vital  truth  it 
declared.  Only  slowly  could  it  come  to  realise  that 
much  of  what  it  regarded  as  an  essential  part  of  the 
Gospel  was  but  the  temporary  Semitic  form  in  which 
it  clothed  itself,  and  from  which  it  had  to  be  disengaged 
to  fulfil  its  purpose  as  the  message  of  the  Son  of  Man  ; 
and  that  it  could  equally  assume  other  forms  of  thought 
and  life,  and  mould  them  by  its  renewing  power. 

Of  course  it  does  not  follow,  though  Christianity  may 
claim  to  be  alien  to  no  human  interest  or  activity,  that  the 
individual  Christian  may  not  find  it  necessary  to  surrender 
many  inclinations  in  themselves  natural  and  healthy,  but 
which  constitute  for  him  a  serious  peril  to  the  spiritual  life. 
That  is  a  personal  question  which  each  soul  must  answer 
for  itself.  Such  self-imposed  sacrifice  may  be  the  highest 
dictate  of  duty,  or  it  may  be  only  a  cheap  solution  of 
an  arduous  spiritual  problem,  "  making  a  solitude,  and 
calling  it  peace."  But  however  needful  it  may  be  for  the 
individual^  it  constitutes  no  standard  of  obligation  for  his 
neighbour.  In  loyalty  to  Christ,  men  may  have  to  impose 
on  themselves  many  limitations,  which  vary  according  to  the 
type  of  character;  but  Christianity  is  inclusive  of  all  types. 

And  of  this  humanity  so  wide  and  varied  the  Church 
is  the  centre ;  not  because  it  is  its  mission  to  supervise 
the  different  departments  in  which  man's  activity  ex- 
presses itself, — to  arbitrate,  for  example,  in  commercial 
disputes,  any  more  than  to  provide  .amusements  for  the 
people  or  to  foster  research  and  scholarship, — but  because 
it  is  the  home  of  the  unifying  Spirit  of  Christ,  who  by 
binding  men  to  the  Father  binds  them  to  one  another, 
and  teaches  them  to  cultivate  their  diverse  gifts  in  the 
service   of  the   brotherhood. 


LECTURE    VIII. 

THE    RELATION    OF    THE    SPIRITUA*L    TO    THE 
HISTORICAL    IN    CHRISTIAN    FAITH. 


z^ 


syNOPsis. 

I.  The  Neo-Hegelian  rendering  of  Christianity. 

Jesus  as  the  Embodiment  of  the  idea  of  a  divine  humanity. 
Neo-Hegehanism  and  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
Its  ideahsation  of  Christ's  Death  and  Resurrection. 
Christianity  not  an  Ideahsm,  but  an  Achievement. 

[I.  Objection  to  the  union  of  the  Historical  with  the  Spiritual  in  Christian 
Faith. 
Its  Invalidity : 

(i)  Historical  belief,  a  constant  factor  in  determining  all  our  ideas 
of  duty : 

(2)  Pre-eminently  necessary  in  the  religions  sphere. 

(3)  The  Historical  element  in  Christianity  capable  of  exceptional 

Verification  :  the  reason  of  this. 
The  Gospels,    the  link  between  the   historic  Jesus  and  the 

Church's  interpretation  of  Him. 
Subjective  affinity,  the  condition  of  all  insight  into  characters 

or  moral  forces. 
The  mediation  of  the  Church  necessary  for  the  individual ; 

yet  in  a  sense  transcended  by  him. 

The  hypothesis  that  faith  in  Christ  could  have  survived  the  loss  of  the 
Evangelical  Records  ;  why  untenable. 

The  return  to  the  historical  Christ  is  a  return  to  a  supreme  Personality, 
of  which  Teaching  was  but  one  manifestation. 

St.  Paul  not  the  rival  of  Jesus  as  a  teacher,  but  an  interpreter  of  His 
complete  self-rcvclalion. 

The  Gospels,  the  guarantee  against  the  stereotyping  of  partial  concep- 
tions of  Christ's  purpose  and  work. 


Jioo 


LECTURE     VIIL 

The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the 
Historical  in  Christian  Faith. 

We  have  now  to  consider  how  far  the  view  of  Christianity 
which  I  have  endeavoured  to  set  forth  is  exposed  to  the 
objection  stated  in  the  opening  Lecture,  that  it  blends 
together  two  incongruous  elements.  Christian  faith,  it 
is  said,  is  made  to  signify  on  the  one  hand  the  surrender 
of  the  soul  to  God,  its  recognition  that  it  is  He  who 
graciously  works  in  and  with  and  through  it  to  all 
good,  and  that  only  by  dying  to  self  does  it  become  a 
possessor  of  the  true  righteousness  which  is  of  God.  On 
the  other  hand,  this  self- surrender  is  declared  to  be 
based  on  what  Jesus  Christ  was  and  did  in  the  past. 
Faith  in  Him  includes  belief  in  His  incarnation,  death, 
and  resurrection.  But  these  are  incidents  of  a  bygone 
time,  and  their  reality  has  to  be  established  by  the  rules 
of  historical  evidence.  They  belong  to  a  totally  different 
order  from  the  facts  of  the  moral  life.  The  qualities  that 
discover  truth  in  the  one  case  are  wholly  different  from 
those  that  operate  in  the  other.  "  There  is,"  says  Mr. 
T.  H.  Green,  "  an  inner  contradiction  in  that  conception 
of  faith  which  makes  it  a  state  of  mind  involving  peace 
with  God  and  love  towards  all  men,  and  at  the  same 
time  makes  its  object  that  historical  work  of  Christ  of 

301 


302         TJie  Relation  of  the  spiritual  to  the      [Lect. 

which  our  knowledge  depends  on  evidence  of  uncertain 
origin  and  value."  ^ 

I  hope  to  show  that  this  contradiction  is  not  so 
absolute  as  is  here  represented;  that  the  historical  and 
the  moral,  instead  of  being  incompatible,  are  inseparably 
fused  together  in  human  life ,  that  their  fusion  is  one  of 
the  essential  conditions  of  advance  both  for  the  individual 
and  for  the  race ;  and  that  the  problem  which  is  raised 
regarding  diverse  kinds  of  evidence  is  less  aggravated 
in  the  case  of  Christianity  than  in  our  commonest 
experience. 

I.  But  before  doing  so,  we  have  to  inquire  what 
success  attends  Mr.  Green's  own  rendering  of  Christianity, 
whereby  he  attempts  to  detach  its  spiritual  message  from 
historical  entanglements,  and  thus  to  lessen  if  not  to 
surmount  the  supposed  contradiction.  Substantially  that 
rendering  is  as  follows : — Our  whole  moral  life  is  rooted 
in  God.  It  is  because  we  are  conscious  of  unity  with 
Him  that  we  are  conscious  of  our  sinfulness ;  conscious, 
that  is,  of  our  assertion  of  the  mere  particular  self  and 
its  desires  as  against  the  universal  self,  which  is  our  true 
being.  Hence  self-sacrifice,  the  dying  to  the  particular, 
which  is  also  a  living  to  the  universal,  is  man's  one 
blessedness.  More  or  less  dimly  this  has  been  perceived 
in  all  ages,  but  in  Christ  it  was  the  actual  motive  prin- 
ciple of  a  whole  life,  and  found  its  final  expression  in  a 
death  voluntarily  incurred  in  utter  loyalty  to  the  universal 
truth  and  love.  In  Paul's  belief  that  dcatJi  was  followed 
by  a  resurrection  on  the  third  day.  But  these  were  to 
him  not  simply  events ;  they  were  essentially  the  out- 
ward symbols  of  Christ's  spiritual  triumph,  of  that  death 
*  Miscellaneous  IVorks,  vol.  iii   p.  260. 


viii.]  Historical  in  Christia7i  Faith  303 

unto  sin  in  virtue  of  whicli  Christ  lived  eternally  unto 
God.  They  were  but  two  sides  of  the  same  inward  act. 
"  God  was  in  Christ,  so  that  what  He  did,  God  did.  A 
death  unto  life,  a  life  out  of  death,  must  then  be  in  some 
way  the  essence  of  the  divine  nature ;  must  be  an  act 
which,  though  exhibited  once  for  all  in  the  crucifixion 
and  resurrection  of  Christ,  was  yet  eternal — the  act  of 
God  Himself.  For  that  very  reason,  however,  it  was  one 
perpetually  re-enacted  and  to  be  re-enacted  by  man."  ^ 
Christ  was  not  the  eternal  Son  incarnate,  but  the  supreme 
manifestation  in  humanity  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  who  is 
Himself  the  perfect  self-sacrifice ;  and  in  the  receiving  of 
that  Spirit  we  know  Him  as  a  present,  reconciled,  and 
indwelling  God.  Therefore  faith  in  its  true  character 
does  not  imply  any  assent  to  the  atoning  death  or  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  as  historic  facts.  Without  the 
Christian  tradition  as  to  certain  events  in  the  past,  it 
would  not  have  been  what  it  is ;  but  in  reality  it  is  the 
faith  which  accredits  the  events,  not  the  events  the  faith.^ 
It  may  be  quickened  from  this  source  or  that,  but  when 
awaked  it  lives  by  its  own  vitality,  and  is  justified  by 
nothing  but  itself 

It  is  astonishing  that  Mr.  Green  should  imagine  that 
by  this  theory  he  was  overcoming  the  contradiction  of 
which  he  makes  so  much.  While  he  maintains  that  the 
idea  of  self-sacrifice  as  man's  true  life  is  not  confined  to 
any  nation  or  age,  yet  he  acknowledges  that  in  the 
providence  of  God  it  is  in  Christendom  that  this  idea  has 

^  Miscellaneous  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  233. 

2  Ibid.  pp.  262,  263.  See  article  by  Principal  Rainy  in  The  Theological 
Review  for  June  1889,  on  "  Thomas  Hill  Green  and  his  Religious  Philosophy" ; 
also  two  papers  on  the  same  subject  by  the  Rev.  T.  B.  Kilpatrick,  B.U.,  in. 
The  Thitikeriox  1895, 


304         The  Relation  of  the  Splrittial  to  the       [Lect. 

become  the  power  of  a  present  and  spiritual  resurrection, 
not  adequately  or  exclusively  indeed,  but  most  fully.^ 
What  then  accounts  for  this  characteristic  of  Christen- 
dom ?  It  lies,  he  answers,  in  the  Gospel  history  as 
interpreted  by  St.  Paul.^  It  was  he  who  read  the 
eternal  significance  of  Christ's  life  and  death.  But  the 
quickening  that  flows  from  Paul's  interpretation,  whether 
we  take  Mr.  Green's  construction  of  it  or  not,  involves  at 
least  two  facts  :  the  remarkable  purity  of  Christ's  life, 
and  His  crucifixion.  But  in  affirming  these  we  are 
already  in  the  historical  sphere.  We  are  "  assenting  to 
propositions  on  evidence "  ;  nor  can  it  be  said  that  our 
belief  is  "  different  in  kind  from  the  belief  that  Caesar 
was  murdered  on  the  Ides  of  March."  ^  This  is  true,  so 
long  as  a  single  shred  of  historical  fact  is  retained  in  our 
thought  of  Christ,  and  the  only  way  we  can  escape  from 
reliance  on  external  evidence  is  by  the  preposterous 
assertion  that  Christianity  would  have  possessed  the 
same  renewing  power  though  the  life  and  death  of  Christ 
were  but  creations  of  the  imagination. 

Passing  from  this,  to  which  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  refer  farther  on :  What  is  Mr.  Green's  conception  of 
Christ's  actual  character?  His  language  in  unfolding 
the  inner  truth  of  the  Pauline  Christology  naturally 
suggests  that  he  regards  Him  as  one  who  personally 
achieved  a  complete  obedience  to  the  spiritual  law  of 
dying  to  self;  but  from  his  distinct  repudiation  of  what 
he  terms  "  the  intrusion  of  the  supernatural  within  the 
natural "  ^  we  may  safely  conclude  that  he  rejects  the 
moral   miracle  of  sinlessness.      Dr.  Edward    Caird,   who 

1  Miscellaneous  Woks,  vol.  iii.  pp.  238,  239.  -  Ibid.  p.  262. 

^  Ibid.  p.  2  so  ■*  Ibid.  p.  265. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  CJn'istian  Faith  305 

occupies  substantially  the  same  philosophical  standpoint, 
evidently  holds  the  same  view.  "  By  Him  (Jesus)  as  by 
no  other  individual  before,  the  pure  idea  of  a  divine 
humanity  was  apprehended  and  made  into  the  great 
principle  of  life ;  and  consequently,  in  so  far  as  that  idea 
can  be  regarded  as  realised  in  an  individual, — and  it  was 
a  necessity  of  feeling  and  imagination  that  it  should  be 
regarded  as  so  realised, — in  no  other  could  it  find  so  pure 
an  embodiment.  Nay,  we  may  add  that,  so  long  as  it 
was  regarded  as  embodied  in  Him  only  in  the  same  sense 
in  whicJi  it  flowed  out  from  Him  to  others,  so  long  the 
primacy  attributed  to  Christ  could  not  obscure  the  truth. 
It  only  furnished  it  with  a  typical  expression,  whereby 
the  movement  of  the  feelings  and  the  imagination  were 
kept  in  harmony  with  that  of  the  intelligence."  ^  That  is 
to  say,  it  is  the  necessary  action  of  human  feeling  and 
imagination  that  has  endowed  Jesus  with  an  ideal  perfec- 
tion which  cannot  positively  be  affirmed  of  Him. 

But,  as  I  have  sought  to  show,^  the  uniqueness  of 
Christ's  spiritual  self-consciousness.  His  sense  of  unim- 
paired sonship,  is  borne  home  to  us  by  overwhelming 
evidence  as  an  indisputable  historical  reality.  No 
critical  theory  which  denies  this  can  give  even  a 
plausible  explanation  of  the  Gospel  story.  That  Christ 
was  conscious  of  sin,  but  did  not  confess  it ;  that  He 
confessed    it,  but  the   disciples    were   not   present ;  that 

^  Evolution  of  Keligion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  230,  231.  The  italics  are  mine.  I 
cannot  interpret  this  passage  in  any  other  way  than  as  signifying  that  not  only 
the  belief  in  Christ's  essential  Deity  but  the  belief  in  His  sinless  humanity  is 
the  product  of  religious  emotion ;  and  therefore,  intellectually  regarded, 
Aberglaube.  See  Note  36,  p.  461,  "  The  historical  Jesus  as  the  Symbol  or 
Example  of  the  divine  life  in  man." 

-  Lectures  I.  and  II. 

20 


o 


06         The  Relatio7i  of  the  Spirihtal  to  the      [Lect. 


they   heard    His    confessions,  but   forgot    or   suppressed 
them,  from  an  unconscious  or  conscious  spirit  of  ideaHsa- 
tion, — are  hypotheses   whose    absurdity   is    about   equal. 
On  the  other  hand,  He  uses  expressions  regarding  Him- 
self, and   puts  forth  claims   of  supremacy  over  humanity 
as  the  organ  of  the  Father's  will   and    love,  which  could 
never  have    been   uttered    by  one   who   bore   a   sense  of 
un worthiness.       To   suppose    that    these   were    not    His 
words,   but    invented    and    ascribed    to    Him,  involves   a 
tissue    of    impossibilities.       It    seems    to    me    that    the 
Church   has    some  right  to  remonstrate  with   the   Neo- 
Hegelian   School  on  their  cavalier  way  of  treating  this 
question.      They  have  done  good   service  in  emphasising 
the    universality    of  the   Christian    principle,  in   showing 
that   the   self-sacrifice   manifested    by  Christ  is  not  the 
condition  on  which  the  benefits  of  forgiveness  and  peace 
with    God   are  externally  conferred  on  others,  but  that 
it  has  to  be  reproduced   as  the  dominant  power  in  each 
Christian  life.      Nor  is  their  construction  of  Christianity 
lacking   in  a  certain  apparent  reasonableness  from  the 
philosophical  point  of  view,  when  they  go  on  to  explain 
how    Christ,    though    not   uniquely    but    only    relatively 
good,  has  become  the  embodiment  of  this  divine  life  for 
mankind,  partly  through  Jewish   Messianic   conceptions, 
partly   through    the   tragedy   of   His  career,  and    partly 
through  the  transfiguration   of  human   love  and  longing. 
The  Pauline  system  can  be  made  by  judicious  manipula- 
tion  to  accord   somewhat   with   this   rendering ;  but   the 
Synoptic    records    never.      And    it    is   just    the  problem 
which    these    records    present    that    the    Neo- Hegelians 
persistently   refuse   to   face.      Until   they  can   prove  that 
the   personality  disclosed    in    the   Gospels   can   be  fairly 


VIII. 'J  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  ^oy 

interpreted  along  evolutionary  lines,  their  philosophy  of 
Christianity  breaks  itself  on  the  facts. 

For  this  reason  the  account  they  give  of  the  effect 
produced  upon  us  by  Christ's  life  and  death  is  radically 
inadequate.  In  their  representation  it  is  only  the 
supreme  revelation  of  that  law  of  dying  to  self  which 
applies  both  to  Him  and  to  us.  Inspired  by  what  He 
was,  we  are  led  to  appropriate  it  as  the  law  of  our 
own  being,  and  in  thus  committing  ourselves  to  the 
same  power  of  God  which  wrought  in  Him,  we  have 
within  us  the  promise  and  pledge  of  moral  deliverance. 
But  what  Christ  reveals  to  us  is  not  simply  that  self- 
sacrifice  is  the  principle  of  all  spiritual  life,  and  there- 
fore common  to  Him  and  to  us,  but  that  He  realised 
it,  and  that  2ue  do  not.  His  effect  upon  us  is  not 
single  :  it  is  dual.  It  reveals  at  once  His  identity  with 
us  in  principle.  His  solitariness  in  achievement.  Deeply 
convinced  as  we  are  that  He  was  at  peace  because  of 
His  unfailing  loyalty  to  the  divine  purpose,  and  that 
that  peace  would  be  ours  if  we  could  attain  the  loyalty, 
it  does  not  lessen  the  gulf  that  actually  separates  us 
from  God.  If  anything  is  certain,  it  is  that  we  do  not 
attain  deliverance  by  merely  making  the  law  of  His 
life  our  own,  by  surrendering  ourselves  to  the  same  God 
whose  will  He  fulfilled.  For  the  surrender  is  never 
complete ;  and  it  is  Christ  Himself  who  compels  us  to 
feel  the  misery  of  an  incomplete  submission.  It  is  He 
who  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  treat  our  sense  of 
sin  as  a  ncgligeable  quantite.  He  intensifies  it  to  the 
uttermost.  We  may  repent  and  long  for  that  death 
to  self  which  is  life  to  God,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 
that  longing  only  shows  that  we  still  stand   over  against 


3o8        The  Relation  of  tJic  Sph'iitial  to  tJie      [Lect. 

God  ;  that  we  are  actually  not  one  with  Him.  If 
Christ's  life  be  only  an  illustration  of  unbroken  loyalty 
to  good,  it  is  an  enigma  in  history.  As  a  mere  example, 
He  is  no  encouragement  to  us,  for  His  moral  experience 
has  different  conditions  from  ours.  We  have  to  carry 
a  burden  of  self-condemnation  before  God,  which  He 
never  knew,  which  indeed  He  does  not  diminish  but 
increase.  His  existence  in  our  world  is  only  rational 
if  His  sinlessness  has  not  merely  an  individual  but  a 
universal  meaning.  But  this  it  cannot  have,  if  He  has 
not  dealt  with  our  sin  and  so  borne  its  condemnation 
that  He  has  acquired  the  power  of  communicating  to 
us  the  secret  of  His  victory.  We  do  not  surrender 
ourselves  to  God,  but  to  God  in  Christ,  for  in  Christ 
alone  is  the  reconciliation  realised.  In  other  words,  only 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  sinless  humanity  can  we  reach 
the  peace  which  is  the  deepest  necessity  of  our  nature ; 
and  this  sinless  humanity  cannot  be  wrought  out  by  the 
sinner,  but  ovXy  for  him  that  it  may  be  wrought  in  him. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  Paul  could  not  have  based 
the  moral  dying  and  rising  again  of  believers  on  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  Christ,  unless  the  latter  had 
contained  for  him  the  same  spiritual  principle  of  dying 
to  self.^  But  it  is  only  a  part  of  the  truth  ;  for  it 
does  no  justice  to  the  fundamental  difference  in  the 
two  cases.  When  Paul  speaks  of  our  "  dying  daily," 
he  is  referring  to  the  moral  struggle  implied  in  over- 
coming the  flesh  with  its  affections  and  lusts,  in  putting 
off  the  old  man.  He  never  applies  the  phrase  to  Christ, 
because  there  was  no  inward  discord  in  His  being. 
"  The  death  that  He  died,  He  died  to  sin  once  for 
^  Vid,  Matthew  Arnold,  St,  Paul  and  Protestantism  (edit.   1SS9),  pp.  51  fT. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  309 

all."  ^  It  was  the  death  of  the  Sinless  One  to  that 
human  sin  which  hung  about  Him  and  wreaked  its 
effects  upon  Him,  on  account  of  His  identification  of 
Himself  with  a  sinful  humanity.  In  that  one  act  the 
pressure  of  sin  upon  Him  culminated  and  closed,  so 
that  His  sinless  life  became  the  centre  of  a  new 
humanity.  His  death  was  indeed  the  supreme  ex- 
pression of  that  self-sacrifice  which  was  the  one  law 
and  spirit  of  His  being;  but  the  essential  point  is  that 
His  self-sacrifice  led  Him  to  undergo  a  death  which 
none  other  could  endure,  and  by  which  the  Holy  One 
opened  out  for  the  guilty  a  way  into  the  holiest. 
Christ  "died  to  self"  always  \  He  "died  to  sin"  07ice\ 
and  the  Hegelian  interpretation  which  first  casts  doubts 
on  the  historical  actuality  of  Christ's  perfect  moral 
surrender,  and  then  employs  the  two  expressions  as 
interchangeable,  not  only  contradicts  the  facts,  but  takes 
the  dynamic  power  out  of  Christianity,  and  turns  it  into 
"  another  Gospel,  which  is  not  another."  So,  again, 
Christ's  resurrection  is  the  manifestation  of  a  spiritual 
rising  into  newness  of  life,  but  it  is  that  in  an  excep- 
tional form.  It  represents  the  completion  of  the  risen 
life  of  the  human  spirit.  That  completion,  the  assump- 
tion of  the  risen  body,  followed  immediately  in  His 
case  upon  death,  because  His  spirit  was  perfectly  pure 
and  self-sacrificing,  was  itself  wholly  risen,  and  entered 
at   once   on   its  full   felicity   of  being.^      But   with   us   it 

^  Rom.  vi.  10. 

-  The  resurrection  indeed  was  only  consummated  at  the  ascension.  But 
in  reahty  they  are  one  act.  The  temporary  separation  of  them,  the  retention 
in  His  risen  body  of  some  physical  attributes  during  the  forty  days,  was  only 
for  the  purpose  of  verifying  in  a  world  of  sense-perception  the  reality  of  the 
resurrection.     See  Lecture  IV.,  and  Note  21,  p.  412,  "The  Ascension." 


3IO         The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the       [Lect. 

is  deferred,  because,  as  sinful  yet  forgiven  and  renewed, 
we  are  only  part  of  that  body  of  Christ  which  He  has 
redeemed,  and  whose  organic  perfection  we  await.  We 
without  those  w^ho  come  after  us  are  not  made  perfect.^ 
Just  as  it  is  because  Christ  died  to  sin  once  in  another 
sense  than  ours  that  we  are  able  through  Him  to  die 
daily,  so  it  is  because  His  resurrection  was  the  actual 
transfiguration  of  the  earthly  body  that  we  know  what 
must  be  the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  our  risen  life  in 
Him. 

It  may  seem  at  first  as  if  there  were  a  great  gain 
in  bringing  Christ  as  near  to  our  measure  as  possible, 
and  identifying  His  experience  with  ours.  But  it  is 
really  a  surrender  of  what  gives  Christianity  its  charac- 
teristic power  of  spiritual  renewal.  "  Read  all  the  books 
of  Christian  devotion,"  says  Dr.  Edward  Caird,  "  from 
the  earliest  to  the  latest,  and  you  will  find  that  what 
they  dwell  upon,  when  they  are  not  merely  repeating 
the  words  of  the  creeds  but  speaking  in  the  language 
of  religious  experience,  is  that  Christ  is  divine  just 
because  He  is  the  most  human  of  men,  the  man  in 
whom  the  universal  spirit  of  humanity  has  found  its 
fullest  expression ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand.  He 
is  the  ideal  or  typical  man,  the  Son  of  Man  who  reveals 
what  is  in  humanity,  just  because  He  is  the  purest 
revelation  of  God  in  man."  Now  the  phrase  so  con- 
stantly employed  by  Hegelians  about  the  unity  of 
the  human  and  the  divine  covers  two  meanings,  and 
confuses  them.  It  may  mean  affinity  of  nature  between 
God  and  man,  whereby  man  possesses  the  capacity  of 
receiving   and    manifesting    God's    Spirit ;    and    it    may 

1  llcb.  xi.  40. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  311 

mean  identity  of  personal  life  between  them.  But,  how- 
ever completely  a  man  may  be  dominated  and  filled 
by  the  divine,  he  is  no  more  God  than  before,  and 
when  the  devout  soul  calls  Christ  divine  it  means  that 
He  possesses  prei^ogatives  which  are  no  part  of  human 
excellence;  nor  is  there  any  word  of  His  which  makes 
a  deeper  appeal  to  its  inmost  conviction  than  the 
supremacy  which  He  claims  as  the  one  Master  and  the 
one  Mediator  of  the  Father's  redeeming  grace.  It  is 
not  because  He  is  the  best  of  men  that  it  bows  before 
Him  as  the  Son  of  God,  but  just  because,  being  the 
best  of  men,  He  is  also  something  viorCy  and  can  do 
for  it  what  none  other  can.  His  transcendence  of 
human  experience,  alike  in  His  life,  death,  and  resurrec- 
tion, in  one  way  isolates  Him  from  us.  But  it  is  this 
very  transcendence  which  is  the  condition  of  our  finally 
reaching  His  blessedness.  Christianity  is  not  an 
idealism ;  it  is  an  achievement.  It  roots  itself  in  a 
great  fact.  And  when  that  fact  is  discarded,  the  Chris- 
tian faith  sinks  into  a  vague  aspiration  after  the  divine, 
an  aspiration  which  will  itself  be  discarded  by  the  mass 
of  mankind  as  an  idle  dream,  and  which  cannot  save 
some  even  of  the  purest  hearts  that  cherish  it  from  a 
recurring  half-despair  for  the  future  of  humanity.^ 

II.  This  brings  us  to  the  objection  that  a  faith  resting 
upon  a  historic  fact  is,  however  inspiring,  inherently  con- 
tradictory. Religion,  it  is  said,  is  a  spiritual  experience, 
the  right  relation  of  the  soul  to  God ;  and  yet  this  right 
relation  is  made  dependent  on  the  belief  of  what  took 
place  hundreds  of  years  ago.  Even  for  the  most  learned 
men  it  is  absurd  to  affirm  that  their  acceptance  of  certain 

^  See  Note  37,  p.  463,  "  Fact  and  Ideal."' 


312         The  Relation  of  the  SpiritiLal  to  the       [Lcct. 

historic  conclusions  is  indispensable  to  their  knowledge 
of  God.  It  is  doubly  absurd  to  affirm  this  in  regard  to 
the  common  people,  who  have  neither  capacity  nor  oppor- 
tunity for  investigation.  Hence  a  historic  Gospel  is  an 
inherent  impossibility,  because  humanity  as  a  whole  could 
not  verify  it ;  at  best,  it  could  exist  only  for  the  few,  and 
that  which  exists  for  the  few  is  no  "  good  news  for  all 
people." 

There  seems  to  be  something  extremely  attractive 
in  this  objection,  for  it  has  commended  itself  in  very 
diverse  quarters.  Mr.  Green,  Mr.  F.  W.  Newman,^  and 
Miss  Cobbe  ^  unite  in  emphasising  it,  but  it  has  in  reality 
very  little  point.  So  far  as  it  distinguishes  between  two 
kinds  of  evidence,  which  may  be  called  evidence  of  insight 
and  evidence  of  testimony,  as  concurring  to  produce  Chris- 
tian faith,  it  states  what  no  one  disputes.  But  when  it 
proceeds  to  disparage  the  evidence  of  testimony  regard- 
ing past  events  as  having  no  valid  place  among  the 
factors  that  mould  the  religious  belief  even  of  the  ordinary 
untutored  man,  it  contradicts  the  plainest  facts.  His 
opinions  and  his  resolves  are  determined  very  largely  by  the 
attitude  which  he  assumes  towards  persons  and  incidents 
of  bygone  times,  of  whose  reality  he  is  convinced  through 
the  witness  of  others.  Patriotism,  for  example,  one  of 
the  elementary  civic  virtues,  rests  upon  history.  What 
are  the  motives  that  create  it?  A  citizen's  pride  in  his 
native  country  is  not  stirred  by  the  mere  fact  that  he  has 
been  born  and  bred  within  her  territory,  and  that,  being 
indebted  to  her  for  his  training  and  career,  he  is  bound 
alike  by  his  interest  and  his  duty  to  repay  the  obligation 

^  Phases  of  Faith  ^  chap.  vi. 

'  Life  of  Frances  rower  Cobbc,  vol.  ii.  p.  44. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Chinstian  Faith  313 

by  loyal  service.  She  is  the  heir  of  long-descended 
memories,  the  arena  of  former  conflicts,  the  birthplace 
and  the  grave  of  heroes.  The  men  who  were  thrilled  by 
the  words  of  Mazzini  and  rallied  to  the  standard  of  Gari- 
baldi heard  behind  them  the  voices  of  the  centuries. 
Their  resistance  to  intolerable  misgovernment  and  oppres- 
sion drew  half  its  inspiration  from  the  consciousness  of 
the  ancient  greatness  of  Republican  Rome,  which  was 
to  them  no  mythical  story,  but  the  most  certain  of 
realities,  and  its  glory  their  proudest  possession.  Faith 
in  the  actuality  of  the  past  achievement  underlay  that 
long  tragic  struggle  for  Italian  unity.  It  fostered  and 
deepened  the  convictions  that  are  at  the  root  of  a  nobler 
personal  life.  The  multitudes  in  every  land  whom  such  a 
historical  belief  influences,  rely  for  its  accuracy  on  prevail- 
ing opinion,  on  what  seems  to  them  competent  authority, 
on  the  concurrent  verdict  of  those  who  have  themselves 
investigated  the  matter.  Were  they  not  to  do  so,  they 
would  be  practically  cut  off  from  the  preceding  ages  of 
mankind,  and  shut  up  within  the  narrow  circle  of  their 
individual  emotions  and  experiences.  Whatever  might 
remain  on  these  lines  would  not  be  human  nature  as  we 
know  it,  and  as  it  will  continue  to  be. 

And  if  our  whole  character  is  thus  affected  by  the 
conceptions  which  we  form  of  what  humanity  has  already 
been,  there  is  also  a  sense  in  which  the  i-eligioiis  man 
pre-eminently  is  compelled  to  relate  himself  to  former 
times.  For  the  God  in  whom  I  believe  has  not  begun 
to  speak  when  I  first  hear  His  voice.  Just  because  He 
is  the  Father  of  all  men,  it  is  of  supreme  moment  for  me 
to  know  how  far  what  He  has  shown  to  others,  and  what 
His   grace  has  made   of  them,  corroborates  what  I  take 


314         The  Relation  of  the  spiritual  to  the       [Lect. 

to  be  His  word  to  me.  The  knowledge  of  God  is  not 
something  we  attain  by  purely  personal  intuition,  it  is 
mediated  through  other  lives  that  shine  with  His  glory. 
There  are  chosen  spirits  that  appear  in  certain  periods  of 
history,  who  are  more  akin  to  Him  than  their  brethren, 
and  who  reveal  truths  which  the  latter  would  never  have 
discovered  for  themselves,  but  which,  when  revealed,  they 
can  recognise  and  verify.  "  All  human  culture,"  as 
Martineau  says,  "  hangs  upon  the  inequality  of  souls."  ^ 
The  value  of  the  revelation  which  they  make  does  not 
consist  simply  in  the  nobler  thoughts  of  God's  character 
which  they  proclaim,  but  in  the  fact  that  the  God  of 
whom  they  speak  is  the  reality  in  their  owji  life  which 
upholds  and  purifies  it.  He  manifests  Himself  through 
them  to  the  world,  by  what  He  does  in  them.  It  is  not 
by  ideas,  but  by  personalities,  that  God  illuminates  and 
uplifts  men,  and  the  moral  function  which  they  discharge 
as  outstanding  witnesses  to  the  divine  is  not  restricted  to 
those  in  their  own  generation  who  have  come  in  contact 
with  them.  Could  anything  be  more  ridiculous  than  to 
maintain  that  the  simple  hearts  whose  lot  has  been  cast 
in  a  prosaic  unspiritual  society  are  debarred  from  passing 
out  of  the  ignoble  present,  and  finding  comfort  and 
strengthening  in  the  saintly  lives  of  an  earlier  time  ? 
Are  they  forbidden  to  believe  in  history,  unless  they  are 
themselves  historical  students  ?  The  inclusion,  therefore, 
of  a  historical  element  in  Christian  faith  constitutes  no 
unheard-of  problem ;  it  is  but  an  illustration  of  the 
uniform  method  of  God's  education  of  humanity,  without 
which  the  race  could  not  remain  an  organic  whole. 

But   while   in    this   respect   Christianity  only  accords 

'^  Scat  of  Authority,  p.  319. 


VIII.]  Hist 07nca I  in  Christian  Faith  315 

with  the  universal  conditions  of  intellectual  and  moral 
progress,  it  is  exceptional  in  the  character  of  the  verifi- 
cation which  it  supplies  of  the  historical  belief  it  demands. 
It  does  not  require  acceptance  of  the  fact  on  bare  external 
evidence.  The  outward  testimony  it  gives  is  capable  of 
an  inward  corroboration.  This  arises  from  the  circum- 
stance that  its  historical  fact  is  not  an  isolated  event  or 
saying,  but  a  personality,  and  a  personality  of  an  un- 
paralleled type.  Incidents  like  the  defeat  of  Darius  by 
Alexander,  or  Cicero's  impeachment  of  Verres,  admit  of 
no  internal  verification.  The  proof  of  them  begins  and 
ends  with  external  evidence.  Christianity  begins  there, 
but  it  does  not  end  there.  That  Jesus  Christ  lived 
more  than  eighteen  centuries  ago,  that  He  was  a  supreme 
spiritual  teacher,  that  He  incurred  the  hostility  of  the 
leaders  among  the  Jews,  that  He  died  by  crucifixion 
under  Pontius  Pilate,- — these  are  truths  for  which,  in  the 
first  place,  we  are  wholly  dependent  on  testimony.  They 
are  among  the  admitted  certainties  of  history ;  and,  so 
far,  the  Church  demands,  even  from  the  most  illiterate, 
their  acceptance  as  acknowledged  facts,  just  as  it  demands 
the  acceptance  of  the  existence  of  Paul  as  an  acknow- 
ledged fact. 

But  the  Church  goes  further :  it  declares  that  this 
same  Jesus  Christ  lived  a  stainless  life,  that  He  was  the 
Son  of  God,  that  His  death  of  shame  was  an  atonement 
for  the  world's  sin,  that  He  rose  from  the  dead,  that  He 
ever  liveth  to  impart  to  all  who  surrender  themselves 
to  Him  forgiveness  and  renewal.  Now  the  soul  longing 
for  deliverance  and  fellowship  with  God  may  say,  '  Here 
is  just  the  message  I  need.  But  how  can  I  be  sure  that 
Jesus    Christ    was    actually    such    a    one  ? '      A    link    is 


3i6         The  Relatio7i  of  the  Spirittial  to  the       [Lect. 

wanting  to  unite  the  historic  Jesus  and  the  Church's 
interpretation  of  Him.  TJic  Gospels  are  that  link.  A 
man  feels  in  reading  them  that  he  is  confronted  by  a 
Hfe  that  has  been  really  lived.  This  conviction  is  not 
dependent  on  disputed  questions  of  date.  He  does  not 
concern  himself  whether  the  Gospels  assumed  their 
present  form  forty  or  sixty  years  after  Christ's  death. 
He  takes  them  in  their  broad  admitted  character  of 
early  documents  purporting  to  record  the  words  and 
work  of  Jesus.  The  impression  they  produce  upon  him, 
that  he  is  dealing  with  a  historic  life,  comes  from  this, 
that  while  it  is  so  natural  and  self-consistent,  it  blends 
together,  in  a  hundred  detailed  scenes,  qualities  which 
are  ordinarily  fatal  to  self  -  consistency :  a  pervading 
humility,  and  a  constant  self-assertion:  the  keenest 
consciousness  of  God,  and  no  feeling  of  abasement. 
Had  the  picture  presented  been  that  of  one  who  pos- 
sessed only  the  noblest  human  characteristics  in  the 
highest  degree,  it  would  have  carried  no  such  witness 
to  its  truthfulness  ;  for  an  idealist  can  easily  create  what 
is  termed  a  faultless  figure  by  adhering  to  the  ordinary 
lines  of  human  experience.  But  a  htmianity  zvJiicJi 
transcends  itself  and  yet  remains  htiina?i  is  no  dream 
of  the  imagination  ;  it  is  the  act  and  revelation  of  God. 
It  is  this  personality  which  vindicates  itself  to  the  man 
as  a  real  thing,  not  necessarily  the  particular  incidents 
or  sayings.  These  may  be  here  or  there  inaccurate  or 
coloured.  But  no  colouring  could  account  for  that  which 
lies  behind  them  and  siiincs  through  them.  Through 
the  parts,  indeed,  he  reaches  the  whole ;  but  it  is 
emphatically  the  whole  which  accredits  the  parts,  rather 
than   the   parts   the  whole.      Quite  possibly  he  might  be 


VIII.]  Histo7'ical  in  Christian  Faith  317 

unable  to  give  any  clear  account  of  the  elements  In  the 
personality  which  attest  it  to  him  as  a  historic  fact. 
But  the  effect  is  none  the  less  real  or  solid  that  he 
cannot  analyse  the  causes.  They  are  present  to  him, 
not  consciously,  but  implicitly,  as  is  so  often  the  case 
with  profound  moral  convictions.  It  might  be  a  comfort 
to  him,  for  instance,  if  he  could  follow  Mr.  Green's 
demonstration  of  human  freedom  as  against  the  sen- 
sational school  who  would  explain  it  away ;  but  he  does 
not  wait  breathlessly  for  any  philosophical  theory  which 
shall  vindicate  his  responsibility  as  a  spiritual  being. 
He  rests  on  the  instinctive  witness  of  consciousness,  and 
leaves  the  intellectual  vindication  of  it  to  others. 

It  is  not  on  the  authority  of  the  Church  that  he 
believes  in  the  unique  personality  of  Jesus  as  a  fact  in 
history :  he  sees  it  for  himself  It  is  borne  in  upon  him 
directly  from  the  pages  of  the  Gospels.  What  the 
Church  does  is  to  help  him  to  understand  the  fact,  to 
realise  its  contents.  However  convinced  that  Christ 
lived  a  life  implying  a  special  relation  to  God  and  to 
man,  yet  of  himself  he  might  not  perceive  what  this 
implied.  But  the  Church  approaches  him  with  its  cate- 
gories of  sinlessness  and  divine  Sonship,  and  says  to 
him, '  These  supply  the  true  interpretation  of  the  person- 
ality you  are  assured  of  Is  it  not  so  ? '  This  sends  him 
back  to  the  Gospels,  and  he  finds  that  it  is  only  in  the 
light  of  these  categories  that  Christ's  life  becomes  intel- 
ligible. They  alone  account  for  those  contrasts  in  it 
which  are  so  surprising,  and  yet  so  irresistibly  veracious. 
Through  the  fresh  insight  which  he  has  thus  gained  into 
the  nature  of  the  historic  personality,  he  recognises  in 
the   resurrection   the    natural    and    inevitable   completion 


o 


1 8         The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the       [Lect 


of  the  unique  life.  The  Church  preceded  him  in  the 
discovery  of  these  truths,  but  he  no  more  beHeves  them 
on  its  authority  than  men  beHeve  in  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation on  the  authority  of  Newton.  He  accepts  them 
because   they   fit  the  facts. 

This  whole  process  of  verification,  while  it  has  an 
intellectual  side,  is  at  heart  spiritual.  That  which  gives 
Christ  His  distinctive  place  is  His  supremacy  in  the 
moral  sphere.  Therefore  it  depends  on  our  own  ethical 
character  what  impression  He  makes  upon  us.  Any 
man  who  has  not  utterly  blunted  his  conscience  feels  the 
distance  that  separates  him  from  Christ.  But  the  more 
intensely  real  sin  is  to  him  as  a  destroying  factor  in  his 
life,  and  the  more  he  struggles  amid  many  failings  after 
a  conscious  union  with  God,  so  much  the  more  he 
realises  how  far  Christ  in  His  unruffled  sense  of  attain- 
ment transcends  our  experience ;  and  the  more  he  realises 
that,  the  more  intolerable  his  own  condition  becomes 
to  him.  Now  it  is  this  very  oppression,  this  helpless 
longing  for  God,  which  makes  credible  to  him  Christ's 
claim  to  our  allegiance  and  surrender ;  which  leads  him 
to  recognise  that  He  is  there,  not  for  Himself,  but  for  us, 
that  God  has  in  Him  interposed  in  history  for  our 
deliverance.  It  is  not  the  need  which  of  itself  creates 
the  faith,  but  it  is  the  need  which  enables  him  to  see 
that  this  faith  in  Christ's  divine  Sonship  and  resurrection, 
and  in  the  significance  of  His  death,  is  the  true  reading 
of  a  unique  fact  which  is  there  already. 

There  are  some  who  argue  that  this  subjective  con- 
dition of  need,  instead  of  tending  to  prove  the  Incar- 
nation, casts  a  suspicion  upon  its  reality  ;  for  we  readily 
believe  what  it  is  our  interest  to  believe.      The  onl\'  way, 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  319 

we  are  told,  in  which  we  can  ascertain  the  actual  truth 
of  past  events  is  by  relying  upon  objective  evidence,  and 
eliminating  the  "  personal  equation."  The  speciousness 
of  this  contention  comes  from  its  confusion  of  two  kinds 
of  historical  facts :  what  may  be  called  bare  or  literal 
facts,  and  moral  facts.  A  man's  ethical  quality  or  gift 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  determination  of  the  year  of 
the  battle  of  Marathon,  or  the  burning  of  the  Pope's  Bull 
by  Luther.  That  is  true  of  all  mere  incidents :  they  are 
equally  accepted  by  people  of  every  class  on  the  ground 
of  testimony.  They  are  the  same  for  the  conservative 
as  for  the  radical,  for  the  agnostic  as  for  the  Christian. 
But  it  is  otherwise  with  the  interpretation  of  a  character 
or  a  great  political  or  social  movement.  Set  Buckle  and 
Carlyle  to  write  the  life  of  Cromwell.  The  framework  of 
the  story,  the  dates,  the  persons,  the  incidents,  will  be 
alike  in  both  accounts.  But  on  Cromwell's  personality 
as  a  reality  in  history,  the  judgment  of  the  two  will 
be  widely  apart.  The  life  they  pronounce  upon  is  the 
same ;  but  Carlyle  sees  it,  because  he  brings  the  power 
of  seeing  it,  because  he  has  an  affinity  to  it  in  his  own 
moral  nature.  So  also,  in  the  case  of  an  immense 
religious  or  social  upheaval,  like  the  Reformation  or  the 
French  Revolution,  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  eliminating 
the  personal  equation,  as  if  the  facts  could  be  equally 
seen  by  any  diligent  investigator.  "  Gibbon's  account  of 
the  early  Christians,"  says  Mr.  Cotter  Morison,  surely  in 
this  matter  a  sufficiently  impartial  judge,  "  is  vitiated  by 
his  narrow  and  distorted  conception  of  the  emotional 
side  of  man's  nature.  .  .  .  Those  emotions  which  have 
for  their  object  the  unseen  world  and  its  centre,  God, 
had  no  meaning  for  him  ;  and  he  was  tempted  to  explain 


320         TJic  Relation  of  t lie  Spiritual  to  the       fLect. 

them  away  when  he  came  across  them,  or  to  ascribe 
their  origin  and  effects  to  other  instincts  which  were 
more  intelHgible  to  him."  ^  Gibbon  brought  his  personal 
equation  to  the  formation  of  his  verdict ;  every  man  does 
and  must ;  but  unfortunately  it  w^as  in  him  no  adequate 
organon  for  perceiving  the  actual  spiritual  forces  which 
were  at  work  in  Christianity. 

Now  the  historic  personality  of  Christ  is,  like  Christi- 
anity itself,  an  indubitable  fact.  The  only  question  is 
what  kind  of  fact  is  it  ?  The  answer  to  that  which  any 
man  gives  will  be  in  accordance  with  his  moral  insight. 
If  he  is  haunted  by  no  yearning  after  goodness,  if  he  is 
not  possessed  by  a  keen  feeling  of  self-condemnation,  he 
cannot  possibly  know  Christ  as  He  was,  or  estimate  His 
place  in  the  spiritual  history  of  mankind.  It  is  only 
when  in  some  measure  life  comes  to  mean  for  us  what  it 
meant  for  Christ,  the  doing  of  the  Father's  will,  that  we, 
bitterly  conscious  of  our  violated  sonship,  recognise  in 
Him  the  everlasting  Son  of  the  Father,  "  who  for  us  men 
and  for  our  salvation  was  made  man."  Our  conviction  is 
no  mere  subjective  or  arbitrary  impression.  It  is  rendered 
inevitable  by  the  facts  of  God  and  sin,  which  are  to  us 
the  profoundest  realities  of  our  being.  They  are  no  less 
real  and  objective  to  us,  though  some  treat  them  as 
illusions,  just  as  they  explain  away  the  imperativeness  of 
duty.  We  have  not  created  them,  we  have  only  dis- 
covered or  recognised  them.  And  it  is  because  we  know 
them  that  we  understand  Christ.  To  say  that  this 
correspondence  of  the  Incarnation  with  human  necessity 

1  J.  C.  Morison,  Gibbon  (''English  Men  of  Letters"),  p.  122.  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen  passes  the  same  verdict  on  Gibbon's  work.  "  From  his  pages  little 
can  be  learnt  as  to  the  true  significance  of  the  greatest  religious  convulsion 
that  has  transfonucd  the  world's  history."     Quarterly  Review,  No.  369,  p.  28. 


VIII. J  Historical  ill  Christian  Faith  321 

or  longing  casts  suspicion  on  its  historical  reality,  is  a 
senseless  paradox.  How  could  such  an  event  ever  be 
proved  on  historical  evidence  without  any  reference 
to  its  meaning  for  humanity  ?  If  it  took  place  at  all,  it 
had  the  most  momentous  significance  for  human  life. 
Were  no  purpose  discernible  in  it,  would  any  testimony 
make  it  even  faintly  probable  ?  And  is  it  not  plain  that 
the  measure  in  which  it  relates  itself  to  man  as  the 
satisfaction  or  completion  of  his  nature,  forms  an  essen- 
tial element  in  the  demonstration  of  its  historical  truth? 
Hence  the  assurance- with  which  anyone  believes  it  will 
be  proportioned,  on  the  one  hand,  to  his  knowledge  of  the 
necessities  and  contradictions  of  his  own  spiritual  being, 
and,  on  the  other,  to  his  consciousness  of  the  degree  in 
which  the  Incarnation  meets  and  resolves  them.^ 

This  moral  susceptibility,  which  is  one  of  the  indis- 
pensable conditions  of  the  proof,  is  not  a  quality  possessed 
by  a  man  as  an  isolated  individual.  He  gains  it  through 
the  fellowship  of  the  good.  We  have  seen  that  the 
Church  declares  to  him  the  interpretation  of  Christ,  and 
challenges  his  recognition  of  it  as  true.  But  it  does 
more :  it  quickens  in  him  the  capacity  of  recognition. 
Literature  supplies  in  this  respect  an  almost  exact 
parallel  to  Christianity.  A  poet  like  Wordsworth,  whose 
song  has  a  note  in  it  never  heard  before,  has,  as  the 
phrase  is,  to  create  his  audience.  A  few  souls  who  have 
an  affinity  with  the  singer  perceive  his  greatness  at  once. 
His  message  finds  an  echo  in  them.  But  at  first  the 
multitude  treat  him  with  sheer  indifference.  Yet  gradu- 
ally he  comes  to  his  heritage.  The  finer  and  quicker 
spirits  whom  he  influences,  in  their  turn  influence  others. 

^  See  Note  3S,  p.  46S,  "The  Verification  of  a  Historical  Revelation." 
21 


o 


2  2         The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the      [Lect. 


They  act  as  the  mediators  and  interpreters  of  the  new 
truth  whose  freshness  and  beauty  could  not  be  directly 
perceived.  They  familiarise  even  the  common  mind 
with  ideas  and  suggestions  inspired  by  the  poet,  which 
prepare  it  for  perceiving  how  much  nobler  is  the  poet's 
own  expression  of  them.  But  for  the  critics  and  essay- 
ists, it  would  never  have  discovered  him  at  all ;  but, 
having  discovered  him  through  them,  it  becomes  in- 
dependent even  of  their  mediation.  It  admires  him,  not 
because  of  their  word,  but  because  it  sees  and  knows  his 
greatness  for  itself. 

Just  as  the  poet  creates  through  his  interpreters  the 
taste  by  which  he  is  appreciated,  so  Christ  through  the 
Church  develops  the  moral  insight  by  which  He  is 
recognised.  We  do  not  approach  Him  unmediated ; 
we  judge  Him  by  faculties  quickened  by  the  power 
which  He  has  already  exercised  over  others.  Wherever 
Christian  civilisation  has  penetrated,  it  has  aroused  a  new 
sense  of  moral  obligation,  and  raised  humility,  gentleness, 
and  unselfishness  to  the  rank  of  virtues.  Thus  even 
outside  the  Christian  fellowship  it  has  compelled  men  to 
estimate  human  conduct  by  a  more  strenuous  test.  It  is 
this  intensification  of  the  general  conscience  that  gives 
potency  to  the  preaching  of  Christ.  And  as  the  Church 
awakes  in  men  the  power  of  perceiving  Him,  so  it 
exercises  a  constant  influence  in  confirming  and  deepen- 
ing the  perception.  Not  only  is  our  personal  faith 
corroborated  by  the  fact  that  others  share  it,  thereby 
delivering  us  from  the  fear  that  it  is  merely  subjective 
and  idiosyncratic,  but  the  Church  brings  us  into  com- 
munion with  those  whom  wc  recognise  as  embodying 
more   fully  than  we  the  type  of  character  which  wc  long 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  323 

to  possess.  Through  them  we  learn  to  acknowledge  the 
finer  demands  of  the  Christian  consciousness.  We  see 
that  they  surpass  us  in  that  self-knowledge,  that  moral 
quality,  which  attains  to  the  vision  of  Him ;  and  there- 
fore their  testimony  to  the  fulness  of  deliverance  and 
peace  which  He  brings,  however  much  it  outruns  our 
personal  experience,  becomes  to  us  a  revelation  of  the 
possibilities  of  the  spiritual  life.  The  Church  thus 
environs  us  with  the  influences  that  go  to  create  the 
condition  of  Christian  faith.  Whether  they  actually  do 
create  it  depends,  as  all  moral  influence  does  for  its 
effect,  on  the  earnestness  with  which  the  individual 
absorbs  and  appropriates  them.  It  is  this  subjective 
condition  which  enables  him  to  verify  Christ  as  both 
historical  and  spiritual,  which  at  once  attests  the  unique 
life  depicted  in  the  Gospels  as  an  actual  fact  in  humanity, 
and  reveals  that  life  as  the  present  power  of  his  own 
sonship  to  God.  Christ's  Sonship  in  the  past  is  not 
simply  guaranteed  to  him  by  his  experience  of  what 
Christ  is  in  him  now;  it  is  itself  seen  to  be  a  historic 
reality.  Faith  is  produced  by  the  blending  of  these  two 
factors,  the  historic  personality  and  the  spiritual  ex- 
perience, as  correlative  phases  of  the  one  supreme  self- 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ. 

Dr.  Dale,  in  his  anxiety  to  show  that  the  rationality 
of  Christian  belief  is  not  affected  by  any  questions  that 
may  be  raised  regarding  the  date  or  authorship  of  the 
Gospels,  argues  that  the  Gospels  themselves  are  not 
necessary  for  the  creation  or  vindication  of  faith,  and 
holds  that  the  whole  stress  might  be  laid  on  the 
spiritual  verification  by  the  individual  soul,  as  growing 
out    of,    and    confirmed    by,   the    similar   verification    by 


324         The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the       [Lect. 

believers  in  unbroken  succession  since  the  time  of  Jesus. 
"Imagine,"  he  says,  "that  by  some  inexplicable  fatality  the 
last  three  years  of  our  Lord's  earthly  life  had  sunk  into 
abysses  of  silence  and  oblivion  as  deep  as  those  in  which 
nearly  the  whole  of  His  life  from  childhood  till  He  was 
thirty  years  old  have  been  lost ;  that  the  story  of  no 
miraculous  work  of  mercy,  the  record  of  no  word  of 
power  and  comfort  and  grace,  remained  .  .  .  imagine  that 
we  knew  nothing  more  than  this — that  He  was  a  great 
religious  teacher,  that  He  had  been  crucified,  that  those 
who  had  loved  Him  believed  that  He  had  risen  from  the 
dead.  If  this  were  all  we  knew  of  His  earthly  history, 
the  loss  to  the  thought  and  life,  the  strength  and  the  joy 
of  the  Church  would,  no  doubt,  be  immeasurable.  But 
it  would  still  be  possible  to  believe  in  Him  as  the  Lord 
and  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  to  find  in  Him  eternal  life 
and  blessedness.  For  the  experience  of  the  CJmrch  througJi 
century  after  century  ivould  remain  to  liear  witness  to  His 
poiver  to  redeem  men  of  every  countiy  and  every  race  and 
every  age  who  trust  in  Him  for  redemption.  It  would 
still  be  certain  that,  from  the  time  His  earthly  friends 
had  their  last  vision  of  Him  to  our  own  days,  men  of 
every  description  have  discovered  that  when  they  speak 
to  Christ,  they  do  not  speak  into  the  air,  but  that  He 
answers  them,  gives  them  peace  of  conscience,  strength 
for  suffering  and  for  righteousness,  and  the  immediate 
knowledge  of  God."^ 

An  argument  based  on  a  hypothesis  like  this  is 
valueless,  because  the  hypothesis  itself  is  really  unthink- 
able. Faith  in  Christ  would  be  possible  for  us,  it  is  said, 
even  though   the  records   of  His  ministry  had   vanished, 

^  TJic  Living  Christ  and  the  Four  Gospels,  pp.  39-41. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  325 

because  it  is  attested  by  the  Christian  experience  of  all 
the  intervening  centuries.  But  that  experience  of  the 
centuries  was  what  it  was,  because  it  had  in  the  heart  of 
it  the  indisputable  conviction,  conveyed  by  the  records, 
of  Christ's  reality  as  a  unique  person  in  history.  Would 
it  have  remained  the  same  if  one  of  the  factors,  to  use 
the  mildest  expression,  which  unquestionably  helped  to 
produce  it,  were  withdrawn  ?  At  what  point  are  we  to 
suppose  that  oblivion  overtook  the  facts  ?  Imagine — 
if  we  may  venture,  like  Dr.  Dale,  to  put  an  unreal 
hypothesis — that  someone  had  been  brought  through 
the  apostolic  testimony  to  the  acceptance  of  Christ  as 
Lord  and  Redeemer,  and  had  found  in  Him  forgiveness 
and  peace,  with  all  the  power  of  a  new  life ;  that,  after 
having  thus  experienced  the  joy  of  Christ's  salvation,  he 
lost,  by  some  "  inexplicable  fatality,"  all  recollection  of 
the  incidents  and  sayings  of  Christ's  ministry,  and  that 
he  could  tell  nothing  more  of  His  earthly  career  than 
that  He  was  a  great  religious  teacher,  that  He  had  been 
crucified,  and  that  they  who  had  loved  Him  believed 
that  He  rose  from  the  dead.  Even  if  we  can  conceive 
that  his  own  experience  of  Christ  as  the  risen  One 
continued  as  vivid  as  before,  by  what  means  could  he 
persuade  others  that  this  Jesus,  of  whom  he  could  tell  so 
little,  was  the  Son  of  God  ?  He  had  no  direct  connect- 
ing link  between  the  two  sides  of  his  faith  which  would 
carry  to  them  its  full  attestation.  That  link  he  had  lost 
in  losing  his  knowledge  of  what  the  earthly  Jesus  was. 
His  own  assurance,  if  it  remained  at  all,  was  a  survival 
of  which  he  could  give  no  adequate  account. 

There  are  those  who  speak  as   if  Paul  were  an   illus- 
tration of  a  successful  preacher  of  Christ  who  maintained 


o 


26         The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the      [Lect. 


almost  total  indifference  to  the  facts  of  Christ's  earthly 
life.  They  contend  that  there  is  nothing  in  his  epistles 
which  implies  that  he  knew  anything  of  the  ministjy  of 
Jesus  or  felt  any  interest  in  it,  and  yet  he  founded  more 
churches  than  any  of  the  other  apostles.  But  a  New 
Testament  Epistle  is  not  meant  to  contain  a  record  of 
the  evangelical  facts ;  it  is  a  letter  of  instruction  or 
exhortation  addressed  to  those  who  are  already  believers, 
and  who  may  be  presumed  to  be  more  or  less  acquainted 
with  the  facts.  The  First  Epistle  of  Peter  has  no  more 
special  allusions  to  the  words  or  works  of  Christ,  apart 
from  His  sufferings,  death,  and  resurrection,  than  any  of 
the  Pauline  letters ;  but  it  is  absolutely  certain  that 
Peter's  preaching  was  of  a  different  character,  and  it  is 
tolerably  certain  that  Paul's  was  also.  Does  anyone 
suppose  that  he  gained  Gentile  converts,  for  example,  by 
the  simple  proclamation  of  Christ  crucified  and  risen  as 
the  one  source  of  pardon  and  renewal  ?  Doubtless  the 
resurrection  was  to  him  both  the  proof  of  Christ's  Sonship 
and  the  liberation  of  His  redeeming  and  regenerating 
power  for  all ;  but  he  must  inevitably  have  been  cross- 
questioned  by  those  who  first  heard  his  message  regard- 
ing the  character  of  One  whose  death  brought  life. 
*  How  long  did  Jesus  live  upon  earth  ?  How  did  His 
sinlessness  prove  itself?  What  relations  did  He  hold 
with  others  ?  How  did  He  speak  and  act  among  men  '  ? 
Did  Paul  reply,  '  I  don't  know,  and  you  don't  need  to 
know.  You  have  to  do  with  a  risen  and  present  Lord  '  ? 
Can  we  suppose  that  he  would  be  guilty  of  such  dis- 
respect and  impiety  towards  the  manifestation  of  God  in 
flesh ;  and  if  we  can,  do  we  suppose  that  his  hearers 
would    have    acquiesced    in    the   stifling   of  their    honest 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  327 

inquiries,  and  welconned  the  faith  at  his  word  ?  What 
would  it  have  been  worth,  had  they  done  so  ?  Would  it 
have  had  any  steadfastness  or  sanity  in  it  ?  ^ 

But  there  is  another  fact  which  renders  this  supposed 
disregard  of  the  historic  on  Paul's  part  quite  impossible. 
The  converts  whom  he  made  entered  into  the  communion 
of  the  one  Church  of  Christ,  and  that  Church  was  already 
acquainted  with  the  apostolic  traditions  as  to  the  teaching 
and  life  of  Jesus.  By  means  of  deputies  and  fraternal 
letters,  perpetual  intercourse  was  maintained  between  the 
local  churches  in  different  countries.  Even  if  Paul  had 
desired,  it  was  beyond  his  power  to  rule  out  the  evangelic 
tradition.  His  followers  would  soon  have  found  that 
Peter  and  John  did  not  turn  aside  such  historic  curiosity 
as  irrelevant ;  nay,  that  it  was  already  satisfied  by  the 
concurrent  accounts  of  those  who  were  themselves  direct 
witnesses  to  the  sayings  and  work  of  the  Lord.  Had 
Paul  deliberately  set  himself  to  disparage  the  story  of 
Christ's  ministry,  his  antagonism  on  so  crucial  a  matter 
to  the  earlier  apostolic  teaching  would  have  constantly 
reappeared,  like  his  opposition  to  the  Judaistic  teachers. 
Yet  there  is  no  indication  of  it.  By  a  perverted  exegesis 
indeed,  some  suggestion  of  this  has  been  discovered  in 
his  depreciation  of  those  who  would  "  know  Christ  after 
the  flesh."  ^     But  the  contrast  he  draws  between  knowing- 

o 

Christ  after  the  flesh  and  knowing  Him  after  the  spirit, 
is  a  contrast  between  the  knowledge  that  judges  Jesus  by 
an  earthly  standard  of  greatness,  and  the  knowledge  that 
sees  in  His  lowliness  and  crucifixion  the  very  marks  of  a 

^  Cf.  Sabatier,  The  Apostle  Paid,  pp.  76-85  ;  Stanley,  Epp.  to  the  Corin- 
ihiajis,  pp.  569-589. 
2  2  Cor.  V.  16. 


328         The  Relation  of  the  Spirittcal  to  the       [Lect. 

divine  Messiah.^  It  is  a  condemnation,  not  of  the  im- 
portance of  Christ's  human  history,  but  of  an  unspiritual 
interpretation  of  it.  He  makes  this  plain  by  declaring 
that  he  henceforth  knows  no  man  after  the  flesh,  which 
certainly  does  not  mean  that  he  averts  his  eyes  from 
all  the  facts  of  a  man's  conduct  or  lot,  otherwise  there 
would  be  nothing  left  for  him  to  judge  the  man  by, 
but  that  he  judges  him  by  the  spiritual  test  which  a 
crucified  Messiah  has  taught  him  to  apply.^  Very 
probably  there  is  a  reference  in  Paul's  phrase  to  the 
pretensions  of  those  who  prided  themselves  on  that 
outward  intercourse  with  Jesus  which  he  himself  never 
enjoyed ;  but,  so  far  as  he  censures  them,  it  is  not 
because  they  valued  it,  but  because  they  overvalued  it 
to  the  depreciation  of  the  higher  knowledge  of  Him  in 
the  spirit. 

The  Churches,  therefore,  of  the  apostolic  age,  whether 
Petrine  or  Pauline,  were  not  destitute  of  the  means  of 
historic  verification.  In  the  evangelic  story  that  circu- 
lated among  them  in  oral  or  written  form,  they  felt  them- 
selves confronted  with  a  transcendent  and  self-attesting 
personality.  It  is  nothing  to  the  purpose  to  say,  as  Dr. 
Dale  does,^  that  men  believed  in  Christ  and  found  God 
in  Him  before  any  one  of  the  Gospels  was  written.  That 
which  forms  the  substance  of  our  First  Three  Gospels 
was,  in  great  part  at  least,  as  Luke's  preface  shows, 
current  throughout  the  Church  in  its  earliest  days,  and, 
though  fragmentary,  bore   its  own  witness  to  the  reality 

^  Cf.  Sabatier,   77ic  Apostle  Paul,  pp.  ']t^  {{. 

2  Essentially,  therefore,  the  contrast  describes  two  modes  of  thought  which 
Paul  himself  exemplified  in  the  two  periods  of  his  career  ;  before  and  after  his 
conversion. 

^  The  Living  Christ,  p.  34. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  329 

of  the  life  it  portrayed.  The  same  correlation  of  fact 
and  experience  has  been  in  operation  in  Christian  faith 
throughout  the  centuries,  and  in  the  case  of  the  humblest 
disciple. 

It  sounds  very  heroic  to  affirm  that  that  faith  does 
not  hang"  upon  records,  upon  the  accident  of  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Gospels ;  that  if  God's  Son  entered  our 
humanity  and  revealed  Himself  to  a  few  souls  in  His 
own  generation,  who  after  His  death  beheld  Him  as  the 
risen  Lord  and  experienced  the  outpouring  of  His  Spirit, 
then  that  same  Spirit  could  continually  work  through 
regenerated  men  to  the  spiritual  conversion  and  quicken- 
ing of  human  souls,  even  though  the  traditions  of  Christ's 
humanity  had  vanished.  But,  however  heroic  this  posi- 
tion may  be,  it  is  in  the  last  degree  absurd,  because  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  such  a  contingency.  A  personality 
great  in  his  own  age  may  become  but  a  vague  memory 
to  succeeding  times,  and  leave  hardly  a  trace  behind. 
But  if,  as  in  the  case  of  Jesus,  He  produce  such  an  over- 
whelming impression  that  His  disciples  believe  Him  to 
be  the  Son  of  God  and  proclaim  Him  the  Saviour  of  the 
world,  then  this  very  faith  in  Him  as  the  ever-living 
Lord,  so  long  as  it  exists,  keeps  fresh  the  memories  of 
the  days  when  the  apocalypse  began  before  human  eyes. 
In  order  to  maintain  itself,  it  has  to  recur  to  the  facts 
out  of  which  it  grew.  If  the  knowledge  of  the  human 
life  of  Jesus  was  necessary  for  the  first  disciples,  it  could 
never  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the  faith  of  any 
subsequent  generation.  One  would  like  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  conception  of  the  living  Christ  that  would 
survive,  when  the  knowledge  which  gave  it  its  content 
had  vanished. 


330        The  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the      [Lect. 

And  such  a  position  is  not  only  absurd,  it  is  danger- 
ous ;  for  it  misrepresents  the  character  of  Christian  belief 
as  it  exists  here  and  now.  To  declare  to  those  who 
assail  the  genuineness  of  the  Gospels,  that  our  faith  would 
remain  substantially  unchanged  even  if  they  succeeded 
in  discrediting  them,  is  to  play  into  their  hands.  *  Pre- 
cisely as  we  thought,'  they  reply.  *  Your  faith  is  founded 
on  an  inward  experience  of  your  own,  corroborated  by 
the  similar  experience  of  other  people ;  it  is  a  devout 
imagination,  partly  your  own,  partly  inherited.  But  you 
may  as  well  drop  out  the  historical  element,  when  you 
have  lost  all  direct  touch  with  historical  proof.'  It  is 
exactly  this  direct  toucJi  with  the  Jiistorical  Jesus  which 
the  simplest  Christian  knows  to  lie  at  the  root  of  his 
confidence.  There  are  times  when  his  own  experience  of 
Christ's  presence  seems  to  falter,  and  when  even  the 
testimony  of  Christian  hearts  and  lives  around  him  fails 
to  reassure  him.  He  is  haunted  by  the  fear  that  the}', 
like  himself,  may  be  swayed  too  much  by  moods  and 
fond  imaginings,  and  he  is  only  restored  by  the  sense 
of  an  indubitably  real  Christ  speaking  to  him  out  of 
the  Gospels.  An  apologetic  which  does  not  recognise 
this  as  an  indispensable  part  of  the  Christian  evidence, 
or  which  minimises  its  value,  renders  no  permanent 
service  to  faith.^ 

^  As  I  have  ventured  on  this  point  to  criticise  Dr.  Dale,  it  is  rit^ht  to  add 
that  no  one  could  put  more  effectively  than  he  does  {ibid.  chap,  iii.)  the  ari;u- 
nient  for  the  direct  appeal  which  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  makes  to  the  spirit 
of  man.  "  The  history  is  not  an  ordinary  history  ;  if  it  were,  it  would  stand 
or  fall  by  the  ordinary  historical  tests.  It  is  wholly  exceptional.  Instead  of 
resting  upon  the  demonstrated  credibility  of  the  Evangelists,  it  demonstrates 
their  credibility"  (p.  51).  But  just  because  there  is  an  essential  inter-relation 
between  the  historic  record  and  Christian  experience,  all  attempts  to  make 
experience  adccjuatc  of  itself  must  fail. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christia7i  Faith  331 

Thus  the  return  to  the  Christ  of  history  which  is 
involved  in  faith  is  primarily  a  return  to  a  dominant 
personality,  not  to  this  or  that  detail  of  His  life,  be  it 
saying  or  incident,  but  to  the  unique  life  which  bears 
itself  in  upon  us  from  the  cumulative  mass  of  details,  and 
which  in  turn  accredits  and  illumines  them.  Yet  this  is 
often  denied  or  forgotten  by  those  who  in  our  day  demand 
a  return  to  the  historical.  They  say,  *  Surely  the  one 
necessity  is  to  reach  the  mind  of  the  Master ;  and  if  so, 
must  we  not  gain  it  from  Himself  rather  than  from 
any  follower  of  His,  however  great  ? '  "  When  anyone 
writes,"  says  Dr.  Watson,  "  as  if  St.  Paul  were,  in  the 
affair  of  teaching,  not  only  the  equal  of  Jesus,  but  His 
superior, — giving  to  the  world  more  precious  truth  than 
the  Gospels, — he  has  surely  somewhat  failed  in  reverence 
for  the  Master."  "  The  question  comes  really  to  this  : 
Ought  we  to  read  St.  Paul  in  the  light  of  Jesus,  or  Jesus 
in  the  light  of  St.  Paul  ?  "  ^  For  literary  effectiveness 
nothing  could  be  better  put ;  but  as  a  statement  of  the 
point  at  issue,  it  leaves  something  to  be  desired.  Most 
certainly  it  is  in  the  light  of  Jesus  that  Paul  is  to  be  read, 
but  it  is  not  simply  in  the  light  of  His  teaching.  The 
teaching  was  not  the  ultimate  thing  in  Christ.  It  formed 
but  one  part  of  His  threefold  self-revelation.^  Even  the 
disciples  during  His  ministry  felt  that  behind  His  words 
lay  a  personal  life  of  which  these  were  no  full  expression, 
and  which  revealed  itself  in  act  as  well  as  speech.  And 
it  was  from  the  increasing  perception  of  what  this  life  was 
that  they  gradually  reconstrued  His  sayings.  The  resur- 
rection was  the   final   demonstration    to   them   that   His 

^  Mind  of  the  Master,  pp.  35,  39. 
^  See  Lecture  III. 


'?^'>         The  Relation  of  the  spiritual  to  the       [Lect. 


jj- 


personality  constituted  the  centre  and  secret  of  His 
message.  And  it  had  this  power  for  them,  just  because 
it  gathered  up  into  a  unity  their  varied  experiences  of 
Him,  and  completed  and  confirmed  the  dim  convictions 
of  their  hearts. 

The  problem  which  Christ  presented  to  the  apostles 
is  the  same  problem  that  the  Church  has  perpetually  to 
face.  Fundamentally,  it  is  not,  What  did  He  say,  but 
What  did  His  existence  in  humanity  mean  ?  Paul's 
Epistles  give  his  answer  to  that.  Those  who  cry,  '  Back 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Gospels,'  often  give  no  answer  at 
all.  It  is  no  marvel  that  Paul's  exposition  should  alienate 
them.  Their  commentary  differs  from  his,  because  the 
text  they  comment  on  is  different.  He  seeks  to  interpret 
Christ's  total  manifestation  of  Himself.  They  fasten  on 
a  single  phase  of  it  and  distort  the  perspective.  It  would 
be  well  for  them  to  realise  his  standpoint  before  depreci- 
ating him.  Books  that  deal  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
as  if  it  were  a  complete  revelation  in  itself,  may  be  full  of 
suggestive  interpretations,  but  their  importance  is  only 
too  apt  to  be  radically  sectional.  The  part  which  they 
wrench  from  the  whole  loses  its  proper  and  deepest  value. 
Frequently  they  never  come  within  sight  of  the  one 
question  which  underlies  all  others.  Christ's  supremacy 
over  His  followers  does  not  lie  in  the  fact  that  He  uttered 
deeper  truths  of  God  than  they,  but  that  He  alone  mani- 
fested in  His  own  person  the  eternal  Sonship.  Paul 
enters  into  no  absurd  rivalry  with  Him  as  a  teacher. 
Christ's  life  was  more  than  His  teaching.  Paul's  teach- 
ing was  higher  than  his  life.  Moreover,  their  teaching 
had  a  different  object  and  character.  Christ's  was  one 
of  the   means  whereby  He  first  revealed  His  Sonship  to 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  333 

men  as  a  fact.  Paul's  was  the  exposition  of  what  that 
Sonship  signified  for  humanity.  It  may  be  possible  to 
supersede  the  apostle's  rendering,  but  that  will  not  be 
accomplished  by  eliminating  some  of  the  essential  factors 
of  the  problem. 

What  we  find,  therefore,  in  the  Gospels  Is,  before  and 
above  all,  the  great  personality.  That  stands  out  more 
surely  than  any  of  the  particulars  which  cumulatively  go 
to  verify  It,  and  it  supplies  a  new  point  of  view  for  judging 
the  details.  But  while  it  interprets  them  it  is  also  inter- 
preted by  them.  Hence  the  continual  return  to  the  his- 
torical Christ  is  requisite,  not  simply  to  guarantee  our 
faith  in  the  living  and  present  Christ,  but  to  regulate 
and  correct  it.  The  records  which  enable  us  to  verify 
the  Church's  declaration  that  He  was  the  incarnate 
Son,  also  enable  us  to  test  its  rendering  of  the  revela- 
tion which  He  gave  of  God  and  man.  The  apostles 
derived  their  conception  of  the  mind  of  Christ  from  the 
human  life  of  Jesus  as  illuminated  for  them  by  the  Spirit. 
But  however  true  that  conception  in  its  essential  principle, 
it  could  not  possibly  be  adequate.  The  enlightenment 
of  the  Spirit  did  not  raise  them  above  the  limitations  of 
their  time,  and  could  not  therefore  reveal  to  them  the 
complete  significance  of  a  personality  that  bore  relations 
to  all  times  and  conditions.  The  Spirit's  operation  was 
only  one  factor  in  their  vision  of  Christ.  The  other 
factor,  as  real,  was  supplied  by  their  receptivity,  their 
moral  and  intellectual  capacity.  The  earthly  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God  had  an  infinite  fulness,  and  the 
comprehension  of  it  is  necessarily  a  gradual  discovery, 
widening  with  the  thought  and  experience  of  men.  Jesus 
was   not   merely,  as  Matthew  Arnold   says,   "  above   the 


334        ^^^^  Relation  of  the  Spiritual  to  the       [Lect. 

heads  of  His  reporters";  ^  He  remains  above  and  beyond 
every  generation  of  His  followers.  No  age  can  pass  upon 
Him  a  final  verdict.  It  but  makes  its  greater  or  lesser 
contribution  to  the  understanding  of  His  mission.  We 
see  this  very  clearly  in  the  case  of  His  teaching.  It  is 
cast  in  Oriental  form,  and  often  adapted  to  the  circum- 
stances and  standard  of  His  hearers.  One  of  the  greatest 
problems  is  to  disentangle  the  everlasting  truth  it  contains 
from  its  accidental  embodiment.  Spiritual  insight,  how- 
ever clear,  does  not  suffice  of  itself  for  the  solution.  The 
very  saintliest  souls  of  one  century  have  advocated  inter- 
pretations which  were  an  offence  to  the  common  moral 
feeling  of  the  next.  Christian  faith,  just  because  it  is 
the  expression  of  a  man's  fundamental  attitude  towards 
God  and  the  world,  is  subject  to  all  the  influences, 
intellectual  or  ethical,  which  make  him  what  he  is. 
Therefore,  while  it  is  true  that  Christianity  lies  at  the 
root  of  the  elevation  of  human  character  and  society  in 
all  their  aspects,  it  is  by  that  very  elevation  of  mind 
and  heart  that  Christianity  is  in  turn  itself  more  and 
more  truly  understood. 

The  Gospels  are  the  one  guarantee  against  the  stereo- 
typing of  partial  conceptions  of  Christ's  purpose  and 
work.  The  conception  which  for  a  past  generation  was 
perhaps  relatively  the  best,  most  expressive  of,  and  most 
conducive  to,  its  spiritual  devotion,  may  be  in  some  of 
its  elements  an  obstacle  to  us.  The  refusal  of  the  Fathers 
to  admit  any  real  limitations  in  Christ's  knowledge,  the 
individualistic  idea  of  salvation  cherished  by  Thomas  a 
Kempis  and  the  monastics,  the  mechanical  or  "  dictation  " 
theory    of   Scripture    inspiration    so    widely    accepted    by 

^  Literature  and  Dogma,  chap.  vi. 


VIII.]  Historical  in  Christian  Faith  335 

theologians  both  in  the  Early  and  in  the  Post-Reforma- 
tion Church,  were  errors  that  lay  close  to  the  sources  of 
their  strength,  though  for  us  they  would  be  a  hindrance, 
not  an  aid,  to  faith.  Each  age  has  its  own  vision  of  the 
incarnate  Son,  and  hears  His  word  in  its  own  language. 
Its  faith  in  Him  is  kept  fresh  and  vivid  by  this  contact 
with  a  living  personality,  who 

"  Part  by  part  to  men  reveals 
The  fulness  of  His  face." 

Thus  the  revelation  of  Christ  is  both  one  and  manifold : 
one,  because  it  proceeds  from  the  Ewigkeit-Geist,  the 
Lord  the  Spirit;  and  manifold,  because  the  eternal 
Spirit  speaks  through  the  ever-changing  forms  of  the  Zeit- 
Geist. 

Whenever  the  Church  has  treated  the  historic  record 
with    indifference,    it    has    invariably    fallen    either    into 
scholasticism   or  mysticism.      Christianity  has   become  a 
barren  dogmatic   system  which    made  no   appeal   to  the 
personal  need  of  man,  and   contained  no  dynamic  for  his 
uplifting.      Faith    was    a    formal    assent   to   propositions, 
not  a  self-surrender  to  a  living  Redeemer.     And  when 
this   abstract    intellectualism   was    felt   to   be   intolerable, 
relief  was  found  in  the  pietism  which  dwelt   much  on  the 
mystical   union  of  the  soul  with   Christ,  and   construed 
that  in   the  terms  of  a  spiritualising  imagination.      Em- 
phasis  was    put   on    special    and    ecstatic   revelations,  in 
which    it    was    hard    to   say   where  the  real    ended    and 
the  fanciful  began.      Christianity,  when   scholastic,   lacks 
inspiration ;   when   mystical,  it  lacks   reality  and   balance. 
In  both  cases  we  are  dealing  with  a  conception  of  Christ 
unregulated    by   the    divine   fact,   and   which   we    are   at 


336     Relation  of  Spiritiial  to  Historical   [Lect.  vm. 

liberty  to  fill  with  any  speculative  or  sentimental  content 
we  please.  His  human  life,  in  which  the  foundations  of 
the  new  kingdom  were  laid,  alone  supplies  the  materials 
whereby  we  can  rightly  interpret  His  living  presence  and 
power. 


LECTURE    IX. 

THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  FINAL  JUDGMENT— IS 
FAITH  IN  CHRIST  NECESSARILY  CONSCIOUS? 


22 


SYNOPSIS. 

Problem  raised  by  the  existence  of  a  high  type  of  character  in  many  who 
reject  the  Historic  Faith. 

I.   Indications  of  a  solution  in  Christ's  Parable,  Matt.  xxv.   31-46:  the 
Judgment  of  the  Heathen. 
It  receptive  to  the  quickening  of  the  Son  in  the  sphere  of  duty,  they  are 
made  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  His  redeeming  life.      Love  as 
unconscious  Faith. 

II.   Is  this  principle  capable  of  application  within  the  Christian  world  ? 
Different  moral  connotations  of  the  phrase,  "  The  rejection  of  Christ." 
What  Faith  is  in  its  essence. 

The  New  Birth  and  the  influence  of  Environment. 
Social  and  intellectual  conditions  of  belief  in  the  Apostolic  age,  different 

from  ours. 
The  morally  irresolute  without  and  within  the  Church. 
The  redemptive  power  of  Christ  not  confined  to  the  sphere  in  which  the 

ordinary  Means  of  Grace  operate. 
This  admission  no  disparagement  of  the  Historic  Faith. 

HI.  The  doctrine  of  an  Intermediate  State. 
(i)  As  a  Probation. 

If  for  some  only,  perplexes  rather  than  lightens  the  problem 
of  Destiny. 
{2)  As  a  Training  -dS^A  Purification, 

The  difference  between  this  doctrine  and  that  of  the  immediate 
entrance  of  the  soul  into  the  glory  of  God,  not  so  great 
as  is  often  supposed.     Neither  of  them  corresponds  with 
Christ's  Parable. 
Scripture  leaves  the  period  between  Death  and  the  Judgment  in  shadow  : 
places  the  emphasis  of  moral  decision  within  the  present  life.     What 
this  implies. 
Conclusion. 


838 


LECTURE    IX. 

The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment — Is 
Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious? 

It  can  hardly  be  too  often  repeated  that  the  belief  in 
Christ's  centrality,  alike  in  the  religious  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  in  universal  creation,  did  not  arise  from  a 
speculative  idealisation,  inspired  by  human  needs,  of  the 
life  of  Jesus,  but  was  forced  upon  men  by  the  facts  of 
that  life,  and  the  deepening  discovery  of  its  significance. 
His  unique  moral  self-consciousness,  as  seen  in  all  the 
manifestations  of  His  character,  proved  that  He  personally 
realised  the  ideal  of  human  sonship  to  God ;  His  attitude 
towards  men  before  the  Father  showed  that  this  sonship 
was  not  merely  human,  but  was  the  expression  in 
humanity  of  an  eternal  and  incommunicable  Sonship. 
It  was  because  He  was  Son  in  this  transcendent  sense, 
and  the  one  organ  of  the  Father's  creative  activity,  and 
because  His  Sonship  attained  the  expression  of  its  own 
freedom  in  man  as  a  self-conscious  and  spiritual  being, 
that  the  personal  Incarnation  of  the  Son,  for  the  restora- 
tion or  realisation  of  that  human  sonship  which  sin  had 
impaired  or  perverted,  was  possible. 

Now  it  may  be  said,  '  Even  if  the  facts  of  Christ's 
life  and  the  experience  of  those  who  have  believed  in 
Him  entitle  you  to  hold   this  view,  is  not  such  a  concep- 

339 


340     The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.     [Lect. 

tion  contradicted  by  the  state  of  mankind  as  it  has  been 
and  is  ?  You  say  that  Christ  has  by  His  redeeming 
work  obtained  the  power  to  mediate  forgiveness  and 
renewal  of  all  men,  yet  that  the  actual  bestowal  of  them 
depends  in  each  case  on  man's  receptivity.  But  multi- 
tudes have  never  heard  of  His  Incarnation.  Multitudes 
who  have  heard  of  it  have  had  no  true  idea  of  what  it 
meant,  owing  either  to  their  own  sad  incapacity,  or  to 
the  inadequacy  or  perversion  of  its  presentation  to  them. 
And  again,  many  who  have  heard  of  it  and  rejected  it 
have  manifested  rare  qualities  of  purity,  patience,  and 
unselfishness,  which,  were  they  found  in  a  Christian 
believer,  would  at  once  be  described  as  the  fruit  of  the 
Spirit.  If  the  Incarnation  be  the  recovery  by  the  Son  of 
a  humanity  which  was  meant  to  bear  His  image  but  had 
lost  it,  and  if  this  recovery  only  take  effect  through  the 
response  of  the  soul,  then  surely  it  ought  to  be  brought 
plainly  before  the  mind  and  heart  of  all  men,  and  surely 
the  rejection  of  it  should  not  be  compatible  with  a  moral 
character  which  in  strength  and  attractiveness  frequently 
surpasses  the  ordinary  Christian  type.' 

The  objection  thus  stated  constitutes  a  very  real 
difficulty  to  many,  nor  has  it  always  been  fairly  faced  by 
the  Church.  The  day  is,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  nearly  over, 
when  it  was  possible  to  speak  of  the  heathen  as  con- 
demned for  not  believing  in  a  Saviour  of  whom  they  had 
never  heard,^   or  of  the    manifest  virtues  of  those  who 

^  The  Primate  of  the  English  Church  found  it  necessar}',  in  his  Charge  for 
1866,  to  administer  a  rebuke  to  one  of  his  clergy,  who  had  used  it  as  an  argu- 
ment for  missionary  effort,  that  "at  every  ticking  of  the  clock,  in  every  four 
and  twenty  hours,  from  month  to  month  and  year  to  year,  God  sends  a 
heathen  straight  to  never-ending  misery."  See  Plumptre,  Spirits  in  Prison^ 
p.  184. 


rx.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious  f     341 

were  not  Christians  as  no  better  than  "  ghttering  vices." 
The  moral  sense  of  humanity,  its  instinct  of  fairness,  has 
outgrown  such  verdicts.  Nor  is  it  a  sufficient  answer 
simply  to  fall  back  on  what  zve  feel  to  be  the  Christian 
certainties  regarding  the  Incarnation,  and  the  sonship 
which  Christ  mediates  to  receptive  hearts,  and  rule  out 
all  question  as  to  what  these  involve  on  the  negative 
side.  The  problem  of  destiny  is  in  many  of  its  phases 
shrouded  in  impenetrable  darkness.  But  if  we  are 
rationally  to  maintain  our  faith  in  redemption  through  a 
historic  fact,  then  we  ought  to  be  able  to  form  some  con- 
ception of  the  lines  along  which  that  fact  has  a  relation 
to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men. 

Two  points  in  the  Church's   faith  are  perfectly  clear : 
(i)    That   the   work    of    Christ    in    redemption    has    an 
objective  value  for  universal   mankind,  inasmuch  as  the 
life  which  He  has  thus  secured  for  them  has  put  them  in 
a  new  position   towards   God   by  opening   to  all  men  the 
divine   possibility   of  pardon   and    acceptance    as    God's 
children.      (2)  That  just  because  the  subjects  of  redemp- 
tion  are  free,  self-determining  spirits,  this  objective  life 
in   Christ   can    only  become   theirs    through    receptivity 
on   their  part.      Evidently  the   key   of  the  problem   lies 
in   the   nature    of    this    receptivity.       Would    it   not    be 
rather     a     mockery    to     declare     that     Christ     by    His 
sacrifice   and    resurrection   has    gained   for  all  the  possi- 
bility of  eternal  life,  if   large  sections   of  humanity  are 
destitute  of  those  conditions  of  knowledge  and  spiritual 
opportunity  which  alone  can  turn   the  possibility  into  a 
reality  ? 

I.   Happily  we  are  not  entirely  left  to  a  speculative 
treatment  of  the  matter.      Christ  has  Himself,  in  what  is 


342     The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.     [Lect. 

called  the  Parable  of  the  Last  Judgment,^  at  least 
indicated  the  solution  of  the  difficulty.  The  passage  is 
indeed  a  battleground  of  contending  exegetes.  For  my 
part,  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  picture  it  presents  is  not 
the  judgment  of  Christians  or  of  all  mankind,  but 
specifically  of  those  who  on  earth  have  never  heard  the 
Gospel.2  jj^  Christ's  vision  all  the  nations  are  gathered 
before  the  Son  of  Man,  and  the  natural  and  unstrained 
meaning  of  the  word  tdvi]  is  the  Gentile  or  heathen 
peoples.  This  interpretation  is  in  distinct  accord  with 
what  forms  the  essence  or  heart  of  the  parable :  first,  the 
test  or  standard  of  judgment,  character  or  moral  dis- 
position ;  and  secondly,  the  surprise  expressed  by  those 
on  whom  judgment  is  passed  that  their  fidelity  or  falsity 
to  the  spirit  of  brotherly  self-sacrifice  is  in  reality  fidelity 
or  falsity  to  the  Son  of  Man  Himself.  Could  anything 
be  more  forced  than  Meyer's  view,  that  the  persons 
whom  the  Judge  addresses  as  blessed  are  Christian 
believers  who  have  performed  services  of  love  to  the 
brethren  for  Christ's  sake,  but  who,  having  never  rendered 
them  to  Christ  personally,  "  do  not  venture  to  estimate 
the  moral  value  of  those  services  according  to  the  lofty 
principle  of  Christ's  unity  with  His  people  '*  ?  ^  If 
devotion  to  Him  consciously  inspired  them  to  a  life  of 
burden-bearing  for  others,  is  it  not  absurd  to  say  that 
they  did  not  realise  His  identification  with  a  suffering 
humanity,  when  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  and 
even  this  very  parable  itself  definitely  assert  it  ?  They 
know  in  this  life  that   He  regards   their  loving  service  to 

^  Matt.  XXV.  31  {{. 

'  See  Bruce,  Kingdom  of  God,  p.  3i5« 

'  Comm.  on  St.  Matt. ,  in  loc. 


IX.]     Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    343 

the  poor  or  sorrowful  as  done  to  Himself.  How  then 
can  the  declaration  of  this  familiar  truth  fill  them  with 
astonishment  when  at  last  they  stand  in  the  revelation 
of  His  presence  ? 

On  the  contrary,  the  expression  of  surprise  exactly 
represents  the  feeling  of  those  who,  having  lived  in 
ignorance  of  the  redemption  of  humanity,  suddenly  dis- 
cover that  they  are  the  inheritors  of  its  unimagined 
blessing.  They  had  in  a  measure  welcomed  and  walked 
by  the  spirit  of  brotherly  love.  They  knew  not  Him 
who  inspired  it,  but  they  recognised  its  claim.  They 
learn  now  that  this  spirit  was  the  illumination  and  gift 
of  Him  who  is  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man,  and 
that  in  following  it  they  were  unconsciously  loyal  to 
Him  ;  and  because  they  were  receptive  to  the  quickening 
of  the  Son  in  the  sphere  of  moral  duty,  they  become 
partakers  of  the  benefits  of  His  redeeming  life.  It  is 
through  the  Incarnation  alone  that  men  come  to  know 
that  every  pure  and  generous  natural  impulse  and  resolve 
is  the  sign  of  a  sonship  to  God,  broken  but  not  de- 
stroyed, which  has  its  source  and  basis  in  the  eternal  Son ; 
and  consequently  the  only  obedience  which  the  heathen 
can  render  to  the  Son  is  unconscious  fidelity.  But  their 
receptivity  to  His  life,  though  unrecognised  by  them  as 
such,  is  none  the  less  real.  His  acceptance  of  their 
service  as  rendered  to  Himself  is  no  mere  personification, 
signifying  that  they  have  cherished,  however  faintly,  the 
same  spirit  of  compassion  and  self-denial,  of  which  He 
as  the  Son  of  Man  gave  the  supreme  example ;  or  that 
He  had  so  sympathetically  identified  Himself  with  man- 
kind that  He  suffered  in  their  suffering  and  rejoiced  in 
their  joy.      It  includes   these  meanings,  but  rests  upon 


344     'T^^^  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.     [Lect. 

the  deeper  ground  of  what  He,  and  He  alone,  essentially 
is  to  humanity.  The  Incarnation  is  but  the  manifes- 
tation in  its  highest  form  of  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  Son 
who  is  the  organ  of  the  Father's  love  in  the  making  and 
sustaining  of  the  universe :  a  self-sacrifice  which  lies  at 
the  root  of  every  self-sacrifice  in  man.  Therefore  they 
from  whom  that  highest  revelation  of  it  in  the  historical 
Christ  has  been  withheld  are  not  unrelated  to  the  Son. 
They  hear  a  voice  prompting  them  to  pity  and  practical 
helpfulness,  though  they  know  not  who  it  is  that  speaks 
to  them.  And  when  they  respond  to  its  behest,  they 
thereby  open  their  souls  to  the  life  of  the  Son,  and  show 
that  receptivity  which  under  favourable  conditions  would 
have  appropriated  the  fuller  blessing  of  redeemed  son- 
ship  had  the  knowledge  of  it  been  vouchsafed  to  them. 
Their  love  is  itself  unconscious  faith. 

And  if  the  central  truths  of  the  parable — the  prac- 
tical nature  of  the  test,  and  the  astonishment  both  of  the 
good  and  of  the  evil  at  the  personal  reference  to  the 
King  which  this  test  involved — suggest  that  the  heathen 
are  the  subjects  of  the  judgment,  there  is  nothing  in  any 
other  part  of  the  parable  incompatible  with  this  view. 
Meyer  contends  that  the  words  of  welcome  to  the 
righteous,  "  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world,"  are  quite  inapplicable  to 
non-Christians,  and  can  only  refer  to  the  elect  of  the 
Messianic  kingdom.  But  one  chief  lesson  of  the  parable 
is  just  that  the  Messianic  kingdom  includes  many  who 
on  earth  are  regarded  as  strangers  to  it,  and  who  are 
ignorant  of  their  citizenship.  Yet  as  no  one  can  belong 
to  it  except  through  the  grace  of  God,  the  phrase 
"  prepared   for  you   from   the   foundation   of  the   world " 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessa^Hly  Conscious?    345 

is  meant  to  emphasise  that  the  salvation  of  men 
is  the  divine  intent,  in  contrast  to  the  fire  of  penalty 
which  is  not  God's  purpose  of  destiny  for  men,  but 
their  own  wilful  and  desperate  choice.  Hence  the 
heathen  who  are  saved  are  as  much  His  elect  as  true 
Christians.  The  idea  of  election  is  widened  beyond  its 
normal  significance,  because  it  has  to  be  coextensive 
with  the  widened  conception  of  the  kingdom  which  the 
parable  teaches.  So  again,  the  immediate  recognition 
by  both  sides  of  the  assemblage  that  Christ  is  their 
rightful  Judge  ^  does  not  in  the  least  imply  that  they 
had  already  known  Him  as  such  on  earth.  It  is  part  of 
the  discovery  which  the  great  day  of  unveiling  brings, 
whose  revelations  show  them  beyond  the  possibility  of 
challenge  what  they  are  and  what  He  is.^ 

H.  This,  then,  is  the  principle  laid  down  by  our 
Lord  in  reference  to  the  heathen  :  that  their  response  to 
the  inspirations  of  brotherhood  which  He  as  the  one  true 
light  has  quickened  in  their  hearts  and  consciences,  is 
a  real  though  unconscious  faith  in  Him,  and  constitutes 
them  members  of  His  kingdom  of  redeemed  souls.  Is 
this  principle  capable  of  application  within  the  Christian 
world  ?  Not  a  few  will  repudiate  the  idea  as  prepos- 
terous.     "  Wherever   Christ    is    preached,"    they   declare, 

1  Kt/>£,  vv,  37,  44. 

2  Wendt,  who  holds  that  the  judgment  here  described  is  that  of  Christians, 
argues  that  Christ  never  represents  Himself  as  the  final  Judge  of  all  men,  but 
only  of  such  as  have,  directly  or  indirectly^  come  in  contact  with  Him  or  His 
preaching  {Teaching  of  Jesus,  vol.  ii.  pp.  279,  280).  This  is  in  flat  contra- 
diction to  the  teaching  of  the  whole  New  Testament.  The  entire  spirit  of 
Christ's  references  to  Himself  as  Judge  implies  the  universal  character  of  His 
office,  though  He  describes  it  now  in  relation  to  one  class,  and  now  to  another. 
See  Bruce,  Kingdom  of  God,  pp.  312-316.  The  apostolic  view  as  to  the 
universality  of  Christ's  judgment  is  abundantly  clear.  Acts  x.  42  ;  xvii.  31  : 
Roxii.  ii.  16:2  Tim.  iv.  i  :   1  Pet.  iv.  5. 


34^      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.     [Lect. 

"  the  conditions  are  totally  altered.  Men  either  believe 
in  Him  or  they  do  not.  There  is  no  third  course.  They 
have  been  face  to  face  with  the  great  alternative  and 
taken  their  side."  Let  me  point  out,  however,  that  the 
question  here  is  not  about  the  great  alternative.  That 
remains.  It  exists  in  the  case  of  Christians  and  non- 
Christians  alike.  There  is  but  one  method  of  salvation 
for  all  men,  and  it  is  through  Him  who  is  the  new  life  of 
humanity.  The  heathen  welcome  or  refuse  Him  accord- 
ing as  they  welcome  or  refuse  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice, 
which  is  His  gift.  The  question,  therefore,  is  simply  as 
to  whether  there  may  not  be,  even  in  a  Christian  land, 
a  true,  though  unconscious,  relation  of  the  soul  to  the 
redeeming  Lord ;  or,  in  short,  whether  in  some  cases  the 
alternative  may  not  assume  such  a  form  that  an  appa^'CJit 
rejection  of  Christ  may  be  in  truth  a  real  acceptance  of 
Him. 

It  requires  very  little  insight  into  human  character  as 
it  exists  around  us  to  see  that  what  we  term  the  rejection 
of  Christ  covers  a  great  variety  of  meanings.  Nothing 
can  be  more  hopelessly  astray  from  the  facts  than  to  talk 
as  if  in  every  instance  it  had  the  same  moral  connotation, 
as  if  men  had  always  the  same  Christ  presented  to  them, 
or  refused  to  give  allegiance  to  Him  on  the  same  grounds. 
There  are,  first,  those  who  deliberately  refuse  His  call 
because  of  the  surrender  which  it  implies  of  their  own 
self-will.  They  love  an  easy,  indulgent  life  too  much  to 
consent  that  He  should  reign  over  them.  The  root  of 
their  aversion  is  moral  selfishness,  which,  if  persisted  in 
to  its  final  issues,  so  saps  the  spiritual  character  that  they 
can  have  no  place  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ's  self-sacri- 
ficing love.     There  are,  alas  !  too  many  whose  whole  spirit 


IX.]     Is  Faith  in  C Jurist  necessarily  Conscious?    347 

is  so  plainly  in  antagonism  to  everything  that  Christ 
came  to  accomplish  for  man  and  in  man,  that  we  are 
compelled  to  say  in  fidelity  to  His  revelation,  '  Except 
they  repent,  they  must  perish ' ;  and  of  whose  repentance 
we  can  cherish  only  that  faint  hope  which  is  already  a 
half-despair.  But  these  are  not  the  only  people  who 
stand  aloof  from  the  confession  of  Christ.  Who  has  not 
known  some  at  least  who  have  been  alienated  from  the 
Gospel  by  the  form  in  which  it  was  set  before  them  ? 
It  was  no  good  news  of  a  great  emancipation.  Its 
essential  evangelical  character  was  lost  in  abstract  doc- 
trinal statements  about  the  Trinity  and  the  Atonement, 
and  salvation  made  to  depend  on  formal  acquiescence  in 
their  truth.  There  was  no  appreciation  of  the  historic 
method  by  which  Jesus  first  verified  Himself  to  men  as 
the  Son  of  God,  through  His  human  purity  and  tender- 
ness, and  His  passion  to  save.  And  as  the  doctrine  did 
not  visibly  arise  out  of  great  ethical  facts  and  necessities, 
it  had  no  manifest  bearing  on  man's  ethical  life.  Hence 
it  was  often  most  ostentatiously  accepted  by  those  whose 
conduct  and  temper  were  as  little  Christlike  as  possible, 
and  who  were  not  aware  of  the  abhorrent  contradiction. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  most  lurid  pictures  were  drawn  of 
the  fate  in  store  for  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  just 
because  they  did  not  give  the  required  adhesion  to 
dogmas  which  were  not  merely  in  themselves  mysterious, 
but  which  came  suddenly  upon  mankind  "  like  the  shot 
out  of  a  pistol,"  and  the  belief  of  which  had  no  obvious 
or  necessary  relation  to  moral  nobleness.  In  such 
circumstances  the  rejection  of  Christ  was  many  a  time 
due,  not  to  what  was  lower,  but  to  what  was  highest  and 
best    in    men ;    it    was    the    indignant   repudiation   by  a 


34^     The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Jtidgment.     [Lect. 

loving  and  generous  soul  of  a  message  which  it  felt  to  be 
a  caricature  of  the  divine ;  it  was,  though  they  knew  it 
not,  the  appeal  from  Christ  as  preached  to  Christ  as  He 
really  is. 

It  is  easy  to  say,  they  had  the  Gospels  to  enlighten 
them  as  to  His  true  character,  and  to  correct  the  ex- 
travagances of  the  preacher  or  the  Church.  But,  for 
long  centuries,  the  Gospels  were  not  in  the  hands  of  the 
people  at  all.  And  even  when,  through  the  Reformation, 
they  became  an  open  book,  the  laity  naturally  relied  on 
the  interpretation  given  by  their  appointed  teachers.  In 
every  age  the  ideas  regarding  Christ  of  the  immense 
majority  of  professing  Christians  are  those  inculcated 
by  the  ministers  of  the  word.  It  cannot  but  be  so.  The 
fervour  of  the  first  Reformation  period  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  scholasticism  of  the  seventeenth,  the  un- 
inspiring moralism  of  the  eighteenth,  were  but  repro- 
ductions in  the  people  of  the  temper  and  attitude  of 
recognised  leaders.  We  are  apt  to  delude  ourselves  by 
thinking  that  the  Christ  whom  we  see  so  manifestly  in 
the  evangelical  records,  as  approving  His  divine  claims 
by  the  unique  glory  of  His  human  life,  can  be  as  plainly 
seen  there  by  any  man.  But  it  is  not  we  individually 
who  have  discovered  Him  in  these  pages.  The  critical, 
exegetical,  and  theological  work  of  the  past  generation, 
together  with  the  uprising  of  a  new  social  spirit,  has 
brought  out  the  perspectives  of  His  life  and  thought  as 
they  never  were  visible  before,  and  also  created  in  us 
the  capacity  of  perceiving  them.  We  accredit  ourselves 
with  a  spiritual  insight,  which  is  largely  the  product 
of  the  age  whose  atmosphere  we  breathe  ;  and  con- 
demn  for   their    perversity    men    who    did    not   welcome 


IX.]    Is  Faith  ill  Christ  necessmHly  Conscious?    349 

a    Christ    whom    they    never    saw,    and    perhaps    could 
not  see. 

Among  ourselves  this  rejection  of  the  Gospel  from  a 
deplorable  misconception  of  its  gracious  message  is  much 
less  possible  than  it  once  was.  Whatever  defects  there 
may  be  in  the  preaching  of  to-day,  it  is  profoundly 
ethical.  It  proclaims  a  Christ  who  is  essentially  a 
regenerating  power  in  the  soul,  and  whose  imperatives 
are  but  the  expression  of  an  insistent  love  which  knows 
that  it  alone  has  an  incomparable  boon  to  confer,  and 
which,  therefore,  in  its  demand  for  the  response  of 
obedience,  knows  how  to  wait,  suffers  long,  and  is  kind. 
Now  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  alienation  or  antagonism 
to  this  Gospel  of  redeeming  and  uplifting  love  on  the  part 
of  many  alert  and  cultivated  minds  is  not  antagonism  to 
its  spiritual  content,  to  the  aims  and  principles  which  it 
strives  to  make  dominant,  but  to  the  historical  and 
intellectual  affirmations  which  underlie  it.  They  not 
merely  admit,  but  eagerly  embrace  its  conception  of 
human  duty,  and  labour  to  make  its  spirit  of  self-sacrifice 
their  own.  Not  a  few  declare  emphatically  that  they 
would  gladly  accept  it  in  its  totality  were  this  compatible 
with  honesty,  so  great  an  accession  would  it  bring  them 
of  strength  and  comfort.  But  if  such  acceptance  is  to  be 
of  any  moral  avail,  it  must  be  above  all  straightforward 
and  sincere  ;  and  they  find  it  absolutely  impossible  to 
assent  to  the  miraculous  basis  on  which  historic  Christi- 
anity rests.  A  sinless  individual  life  as  a  part  of  an 
organic  sinful  humanity  is  to  them  simply  incredible, 
and  no  amount  of  testimony  or  cumulative  probabilities 
has  any  weight  against  a  conviction  approaching  in  their 
view  as  near  to  certainty  as  anything  not  axiomatic  can. 


350     The  Coiiditions  of  the  Final  Jttdgment.     [Lect. 

Obviously,  this  fundamental  denial  of  Christ's  stainless- 
ness  renders  nugatory  all  further  discussion  of  His 
personality.  Others,  while  prepared  to  confess  that 
Jesus  possessed  a  unique  moral  nature,  and  that  the 
refusal  to  acknowledge  this  is  to  contradict  plain  facts  in 
an  a  priori  interest,  are  wholly  unable  to  believe  that  God 
personally  manifested  Himself  in  humanity  once  for  all 
at  a  certain  time  and  place,^  with  all  the  antinomies  or 
mysteries  that  such  a  manifestation  involves  as  regards 
the  person  of  Christ,  and  the  inner  life  of  the  Godhead. 

The  true  answer  to  this  and  similar  objections,  as  I 
conceive  it,  has  been  already  given.  I  hold  that  the 
only  adequate  and  rational  interpretation  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  when  read  in  the  light  of  human  experience,  is 
that  He  was  God  manifest  in  flesh,  and  that  the  presence 
of  God  in  an  exceptional  and  transcendent  sense  in  a 
single  personality,  and  consequently  at  a  certain  time 
a7id place,  was  the  best  and  most  direct  method  that  we 
can  conceive,  of  securing  His  indwelling  in  tmiversal 
humanity.  But  while  I  maintain  this,  I  cannot  shut  my 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  many  who  on  these  grounds, 
insufficient  as  I  regard  them,  fail  to  surrender  themselves 
to  Christ  as  a  personal  Saviour,  are  nearer  to  Him  than 
they  imagine.  It  is  not  only,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
heathen,  the  dim  light  of  the  natural  revelation  of  the 
Son  in  heart  and  conscience  which  they  have  had  to 
guide  them  ;  the  higher  revelations,  coming  from  the 
incarnate  Son  through  His  Church,  of  infinite  self-sacri- 
fice as  the  condition  and  crown  of  blessedness  for  man, 
have  dawned  upon  them,  and  they  have  in  no  small 
measure    responded.      They   have  suppressed    their   own 

^  T.  II.  Green,  Miscellaneous  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  197. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  ill  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    351 

ambitions ;  they  have  counted  themselves  debtors  to  the 
weak  and  helpless ;  they  have  taken  disappointments 
patiently ;  they  have  scorned  to  indulge  in  petty  grudges 
and  envies ;  they  have  known  how  to  bear  even  with  the 
uncharitable.  Where  have  they  learned  the  secret? 
From  Him  whose  Spirit  is  abroad  in  the  world.  It  may 
come  to  them  in  the  shape  of  impersonal  law,  but  it  is 
an  imperative  law  of  good,  and  they  give  their  hearts  to 
it.  That  it  does  not  speak  to  them  of  a  renewing  fellow- 
ship, but  is  only  a  great  unquenchable  yearning  within 
them,  deprives  them  indeed  of  its  inspiring  consolation. 
But  to  say  that  this  loss  has  been  incurred  by  their  own 
self-will,  by  that  pride  of  intellect  which  refuses  to  submit 
itself  in  a  childlike  spirit  to  God's  revelation  of  Himself, 
is  often  quite  unwarrantable.  In  very  many  instances 
it  is  not  a  proud  self-reliance  that  prevents  them  from 
acknowledging  the  historic  faith.  They  are  at  times 
penetrated  with  an  almost  painful  sense  of  their  own 
helplessness  before  the  ultimate  mysteries  of  the  universe, 
and  a  constant  longing  for  a  clearer  light.  They  are 
tender-hearted,  humble.  But  they  follow  what  seems  to 
them  the  highest  truth  they  know.  That  their  human 
sinfulness  blinds  them  to  much  which  God  means  them 
to  see  and  to  rejoice  in  is  true,  as  it  is  true  of  the 
devoutest  Christian  that  ever  lived.  But  it  is  not  any 
special  moral  defect  which  obscures  from  them  the 
vision  of  the  personal  Christ  to  which  others  attain.  It 
is  an  intellectual  characteristic  springing  partly  from  a 
natural  mental  bias,  and  partly  from  the  influences  which 
have  moulded  their  thought.  If  every  man  is  born  a 
Platonist  or  an  Aristotelian,^  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  that 
*  See  Coleridge's  Table  Talk,  July  2,  1830. 


352     The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Jttdginent.    [Lect. 

the  most  dispassionate  love  of  truth  will  lead  men  to  the 
same  speculative  expression  of  the  supreme  realities  of 
existence,  and  irrational  to  brand  those  with  ethical 
shortcoming  who,  with  every  mark  of  ethical  sincerity, 
arrive  at  disapproved  conclusions.  It  may  be  that, 
with  the  most  genuine  desire  to  retain  the  creed  of  their 
fathers,  they  are  driven  by  their  mental  constitution  and 
their  scientific  or  philosophical  training  to  recast  its  form, 
while  conserving  great  part  of  its  spiritual  content. 

Let  us  remember  what  precisely  the  problem  before 
us  is.  It  is  through  His  Incarnation,  His  life,  death, 
and  resurrection,  that  the  eternal  Son  became  the  centre 
of  a  new  life  for  humanity.  The  normal  type  of  Chris- 
tian faith  is  that  which  yields  itself  to  Him  as  a  present 
and  ever-living  Redeemer.  It  is  this  conscious  accept- 
ance of  Him  as  the  mediator  of  pardon  and  righteousness 
which  is  ever  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament  as  saving 
faith.  But  here  are  men  who,  while  they  formally 
reject  the  Church's  interpretation  of  His  personal  claims 
on  account  of  speculative  difficulties  which  are  to  them 
insuperable,  frequently  manifest  in  a  high  degree  just 
those  inward  qualities  of  disposition  and  temper — self- 
denial,  forbearance,  love — which  it  was  Christ's  mission 
to  quicken  in  human  souls,  and  which  constitute  the 
life  of  His  kingdom.  And  since,  moreover,  they  have 
derived  these  qualities  from  His  inspiration,  from  the 
response  which  they  make  to  His  redeeming  spirit, 
operating  through  the  society  around  them,  may  we 
not  cherish  the  hope  that,  though  they  do  not  possess 
the  normal  type  of  faith,  yet  this  response  of  theirs  is 
implicit  or  embryo  faith  which  is  counted  for  righteous- 
ness ?      No    doubt    in   this   matter  we    go  beyond   what 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    353 

is  plainly  revealed  in  Scripture ;  and  deductions,  however 
probable,  from  the  message  once  delivered  to  the  saints, 
can  never  be  placed  in  the  same  category  with  the 
message  itself.  But  the  question  is  not  an  arbitrary 
or  needless  one  ;  it  is  in  a  sense  forced  upon  us  by  two 
unquestionable  facts,  the  universality  of  Christ's  re- 
deeming work  for  humanity,  and  the  welcome  given  by 
men  who  repudiate  its  dogmatic  form  to  the  spiritual 
power  which  flows   from   it. 

It  may  seem  to  some  as  if  the  very  suggestion 
destroyed  all  that  is  distinctive  in  the  Christian  Gospel, 
by  so  enlarging  the  conception  of  faith  as  to  dissipate 
it.  What,  then,  is  a  true  faith  in  Christ  ?  It  is  not 
simply  an  intellectual  assent  to  propositions  regarding 
His  person  and  work,  but  a  receptive  attitude  of  heart 
and  mind  to  Christ  Himself,  a  dying  to  self  and  a 
laying  hold  of  the  life  He  brings.  It  involves,  indeed, 
as  has  been  already  shown,^  an  intellectual  assent  to 
certain  facts  and  truths.  The  historical  is  embedded 
in  the  heart  of  the  spiritual,  and  is  at  once  its  inspira- 
tion and  guarantee.  That  is  Christian  faith  in  its 
complete  form.  But  this  conscious  historical  element 
is  fundamentally  a  means  for  the  production  of  the 
spiritual,  which  is  the  longing  for  the  fellowship  and 
likeness  of  Christ.  And,  thank  God,  there  are  thousands 
in  our  midst  who  draw  out  of  every  doctrine  of  their 
creed  its  spiritual  equivalent  for  guidance  and  support. 
They  assimilate  it,  as  the  body  assimilates  food :  it 
is  transmuted  into  a  vigorous  moral  and  devotional  life. 
The  basis  of  their  confidence  is  the  assured  victory  of 
Jesus    in    His    death    and    resurrection,    by    which    He 

^  Lecture  VIII. 
23 


354      '^^^^  Conditions  of  ihc  Final  fiidguicnt.    [Lect. 

opened  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers.  Yet 
no  words  can  exaggerate  the  intensity  with  which  they 
"  follow  on  to  know  the  Lord  "  that  they  may  attain 
to  the  same  "  mind  "  that  was  in  Him.  But  what 
multitudes  of  Christians  there  are  to  whom  such  a 
description  is  ludicrously  inapplicable.  They  believe 
Christ  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world ;  they  trust  to 
be  accepted  at  last  only  through  His  merits  ;  they  pray 
to  the  Father  in  His  name.  But  no  one  would  say 
that  the  desire  to  walk  as  Christ  walked  is  the  master 
passion  of  their  being.  Occasionally  they  wake  up  to 
a  fitful  consciousness  that  they  are  poor  enough  disciples. 
But  the  mood  passes.  The  sense  of  what  they  owe  to 
Christ  does  not  cure  their  ill-temper,  or  stir  them  to 
pity  for  the  hapless  and  submerged.  That  is  the 
aspect  at  least  in  which  they  appear  to  others.  We 
are  not  entitled  to  say  of  them  that  they  have  no  part 
or  lot  in  Christ's  redemption.  There  may  be  struggles 
and  self-repressions  of  which  we  know  nothing.  But 
if  finally  they  find  their  place  in  the  kingdom  of  the 
Blessed,  it  will  not  be  because  they  yielded  an  assent 
to  doctrines  about  Christ ;  but  because  there  was,  though 
little  perceptible  by  us  on  earth,  some  true  longing  in 
their  hearts  towards  Him,  and  the  righteousness  which 
He  mediates  ;  because,  in  short,  there  did  exist  in  them 
that  opening  and  aspiration  of  the  soul  by  which  alone 
the  divine  can   enter  and   possess   the  human. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  unbelievers  in  doctrinal 
truth  frequently  surpass  such  in  the  best  qualities  of 
Christian  character.  This  will  be  readily  acknowledged 
even  by  those  who  sorrowfully  add  that,  as  salvation 
is  only  through   faith   in  Christ   and   not  on   the  ground 


IX.]    A  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    355 

of  human  merit,  it  cannot  be  theirs.  Unquestionably 
by  the  deeds  of  the  law  no  one  can  be  justified,  and  it 
is  not  on  account  of  their  good  works  or  superior 
excellence  that  there  can  be  any  hope  of  their  acceptance. 
But  is  there  not  at  the  root  of  their  finest  moral  qualities 
the  same  spirit  which  is  the  essence  of  conscious  faith  ? 
It  is  grossly  untrue  to  affirm  that  their  disregard  of 
their  own  comfort,  their  gracious  considerateness  of 
thought  and  feeling,  their  loyalty  to  truth  and  duty, 
are  fostered  or  accompanied  by  the  Pharisaic  motive 
of  a  personal  meritoriousness.  On  the  contrary,  they 
are  merely  striving  to  obey  the  imperatives  of  their 
moral  life,  and  are  haunted  by  an  abiding  sense  of 
inadequacy  and  failure.  If  anything  is  clear,  it  is  that 
they  are  not  trusting  in  themselves,  7iot  proud  in 
any  petty  personal  way  of  their  own  attainments  in 
goodness,  but  gazing  with  eager  eyes,  it  may  be  half- 
hopelessly,  at  the  unsealed  altitudes  of  ideal  duty. 
Instead  of  being  self-centred,  they  are  continually  setting 
out  on  fresh  pilgrimages  of  self-denial,  just  because 
they  are  so  open  to  any  new  influences  of  good  that 
beat  upon  their  life.  It  is  deeply  to  be  deplored  that 
the  best  influence  of  all,  and  the  fullest  of  consolation, 
flowing  from  a  personal  Redeemer,  should  appeal  to 
them  in  vain  on  account  of  intellectual  perplexity  or 
misjudgment.  But  surely  it  is  at  least  possible  that 
their  attitude  of  receptivity  to  the  spiritual  obligations 
and  inspirations  which  He  has  revealed  to  mankind 
may  be,  to  their  glad  surprise,  acknowledged  by  Him 
at  the  last  as  an  unconscious  faith  in   Himself^ 

It    may    be    urged    that    this    receptivity   is  a   very 
1  See  Note  39,  p.  468. 


35^      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Jtidgmcnt.    [Lect. 

different  thing  from    that   radical  change   of  heart    and 
character    which    in    John's    Gospel    is    called    the    new 
birth,   and   which    is   involved   in    Paul's   teaching  about 
justification  through   faith  ;  that   it  is   merely  the   result 
of  the  environment  in   which   they  are   placed,  not  that 
definite  transformation  of  the  inner  life  which  conversion 
or   regeneration    expresses.       The    objection   brings   out 
a   prevalent    mistake    as    to    the    relation   of    the    right 
environment  to  personal  character,  as   if  it  were  some- 
thing  which   could    be   wholly    abstracted,    and    the   in- 
dividual might  yet   remain  ;  whereas  it  is  the  necessary 
condition   for    the    realisation   of  individuality.      A   man 
can   become   a    Christian,  only   if  his    surroundings    are 
such  that  the  Christian  message  is  brought  to  him,  just 
as  a  child   requires   a   certain  teaching  and   example   in 
order  to  quicken   in  him   the  personal  love  of  goodness. 
The  environment    is   indispensable  at  the  beginning  for 
evolving  the  germs  of  morality  and  religion,  but  when 
once   these   have   been   developed   in   the    individual   he 
grows   in   a  manner  independent  of  it,   and   may  retain 
his    new  convictions  though   transplanted    to    alien    sur- 
roundings.       If    we    wish,   therefore,  to    know    how    far 
these   good   influences   of  environment  have  passed   into 
the  soul   as  a  part    of  itself,    we  have  to    ask    how    far 
it    can    bear    such    transplantation,    how    far    its    devo- 
tion  to  Christ  and   duty  enables   it,  when   unassisted  by 
favouring   external  conditions,   to   resist   the   seductions 
that    now    assail    it.       Tried   by    this   test,  is   it   difficult 
to    conceive    what    would   be  the   result   in   the  case   of 
a  large    proportion  of    professing   Christians  ?      Remove 
them  from  the  restraining   influences  which  the  Church 
by  its  manifold  agencies   exercises   over  them,  and  throw 


IX.]    Is  Faith  ill  Christ  necessarily  Consciottsf    357 

them  on  the  resources  of  their  own  fellowship  with 
Christ  amid  a  debased  community,  and  experience  tells 
us  only  too  decisively  the  probable  effect.  They  would 
stand  this  strain  to  their  goodness  infinitely  less  than 
many  whom  they  at  present  condemn  for  their  unbelief 
in  the  Christian  verity,  and  whose  moral  principles  they 
represent  as  nothing  but  the  surface  reflection  of  their 
Christian  environment.  There  are  men  to  whom,  un- 
happily, God  and  Christ  are  but  ideal  personifications, 
but  who  can  hardly  be  tempted  under  any  circum- 
stances to  snatch  a  gain  at  bitter  cost  to  another;  in 
whom  purity,  fidelity,  compassion,  are  an  instinct  of 
the  heart,  and  who  go  far  to  realise  that  moral  wholeness 
and  single-eyed  purpose  which  Christ  so  strenuously 
demanded.  A  confirmed  love  of  good  such  as  theirs,  is 
no  outgrowth  of  the  natural  selfishness  of  man ;  it  is 
the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  "  without  whom  nothing 
is  strong,  nothing  holy."  The  Spirit  speaks  to  them 
through  the  Christian  society  in  which  they  dwell,  and 
they  follow  His  guidance.  In  the  full  Christian  meaning 
of  the  word  they  may  not  be  regenerate  souls,  but  they 
have  been  converted  to  a  new  life  of  humility  and  self- 
sacrifice.  Nor  does  it  militate  against  the  reality  of 
this  divine  change,  that  they  can  recall  no  point  in 
their  experience  when  it  began.  The  conception  of 
conversion  which  represents  it  as  a  change  occurring 
consciously  at  a  particular  time  and  place,  is  not  adequate 
to  the  facts.  It  only  describes  one  form  of  it, — that 
sudden  transformation,  by  which  those  who,  like  Paul, 
have  been  directly  antagonistic  to  Christ,  pass  into  the 
joy  of  His  communion.  But  some  of  the  most  devout 
servants   of  the   Lord    have  grown  up   in   grace.      Their 


35^      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect. 

whole  life  has  been  but  a  deepeninc^  discovery  and 
appropriation  of  the  salvation  which  was  theirs  from 
the  first.  That  is  the  ideal  type  of  conversion  in  a 
Christian  land  ;  and  it  is  the  scandalous  neglect  of  duty 
by  Christian  parents  and  by  the  Church  which  has  made 
it   less  frequent  than   it  should   be. 

People  are  apt  to  regard  the  question  of  the  possi- 
bility of  an  unconscious  faith  in  Christ  as  foreclosed  by 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament,  because  they  do  not 
realise  the  immense  gulf  that  separates  us  in  thought  and 
experience  from  the  days  when  Christianity  arose.  No 
one  who  compares  the  ideals  of  Christian  duty  as  set 
forth  in  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  with  the  present 
character  of  Christian  society,  can  fail  to  be  struck  by 
the  glaring  contrast  between  them.  "  It  seems  im- 
possible," says  Dean  Church,  "  to  conceive  three  things 
more  opposite  at  first  sight  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
than  War,  Law,  and  Trade ;  yet  Christian  society  has 
long  since  made  up  its  mind  about  them,  and  we  all 
accept  them  as  among  the  necessities  or  occupations 
of  human  society."  ^  Our  whole  modern  cast  of  life 
is  different.  Our  political  enthusiasms,  our  pursuit  of 
literature  or  scientific  research,  our  cultivation  of  artistic 
excellence,  seem  to  have  but  little  correspondence  with 
the  strenuous  moral  tone  of  the  New  Testament,  with 
its  spiritual  withdrawal  and  intensity.  Yet  we  to-day 
do  not  maintain  the  legitimacy  of  these  varied  spheres 
of  human  thought  and  action  because  we  have  disowned 
the  Gospel,  but  because  we  believe  that  the  Gospel, 
rightly  understood,  claims  them  for  its  own.  It  is  quite 
possible    that   "  the    austere    maxims    of    privation    and 

^  Gifts  of  Civilisation,  p.  34. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Consciotts?    359 

separation  from  secular  things,"  which  accompanied  the 
first  proclamation  of  Christianity,  were  the  only  means 
by  which  the  manifestation  of  the  eternal  Son  in  flesh 
and  its  immeasurable  significance  for  humanity  could 
have  been  set  forth  to  the  world.  If  such  a  revelation 
was  received  at  all,  it  could  not  but  imply  a  shock  to  the 
existing  view  of  human  life.  It  was  a  transformation 
whose  inward  greatness  demanded  for  the  time  a  total 
break  with  the  established  framework  of  society.  The 
disparagement  of  ordinary  relationships  and  common 
occupations  was  a  temporary  necessity.^  But  gradually 
men  came  to  see  that  the  social  activities  and  interests 
which  they  had  forsworn  were  a  part  of  God's  intended 
order  of  the  world ;  that  Christ  came  not  to  destroy  but 
to  fulfil  them.  This  result  was  not  due  to  the  attenua- 
tion of  Christian  truth,  but  to  the  recognition  of  its  wider 
and  profounder  meanings  for  the  race.^  It  was  the 
teaching  of  God's  Spirit  illuminating  human  experience. 
Not  intellectual  theorising,  but  the  logic  of  facts  taught 
men  to  be  less  confident  about  the  immediacy  of  Christ's 
second  coming,  and  so  taught  them  not  to  undervalue 
the  religious  import  of  everyday  duties  in  the  actual 
world  in  which   God   placed  them. 

As  the  course  of  God's  providence  thus  produced  a 
change  in  the  conception  of  the  sphere  in  which  the 
Christian  life  expressed  itself,  so  it  has  altered  the 
problem  presented  by  the  non-Christian  section  of  the 
community.  The  Gospel  came  as  a  great  renewing 
force  into  the  midst  of  a  corrupt  society.  Whatever 
fragments  of  ancient  religious  beliefs  still  survived  among 

■•  Cf.  Gifts  of  Civilisation,  pp.  44-47. 
-  See  Note  40,  p.  469, 


v) 


60     The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect. 


the  peoples  of  the  Roman  Empire,  had  ceased  to  exercise 
any  ethical  influence.  The  Greek  and  Roman  mytho- 
logies were,  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view,  widely 
discredited  ;  as  a  practical  power,  they  were  effete,  where 
they  were  not  actually  degrading.  What  met  the  eyes 
of  the  first  Christian  preachers  was  a  debased  humanity 
in  which  riotous  vice  prevailed.  The  Christian  Church 
was  but  a  little  circle  of  light  and  purity  amidst  surround- 
ing darkness.  Not  that  the  natural  virtues  were  wholly 
dead ;  but  even  at  the  best  they  had  nothing  of  the 
heroic  in  them  ;  they  lived  a  struggling,  depressed  life, 
and  offered  the  greatest  possible  contrast  to  the  passion 
for  goodness,  the  enthusiasm  of  self-sacrifice,  which 
thrilled  the  followers  of  Jesus.  Substantially  for  the 
apostles  the  Church  and  the  world  stood  forth  in  absolute 
antagonism,  not  in  faith  merely,  but  in  conduct.  This  is 
plain  from  the  picture  drawn  by  Paul  of  the  condition  of 
heathendom  ;  •'■  and  his  emphatic  summary  of  the  works 
of  the  flesh  in  broad  contradistinction  from  the  fruit  of 
the  Spirit,^  is  evidently  a  description  of  the  hateful  and 
profligate  character  of  those  who  refused  to  welcome  the 
Christian  message.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  written  at  a 
later  date,  when  the  dual  influence,  attractive  and  repul- 
sive, of  Christianity  was  abundantly  manifest,  the  same 
sharp  antithesis  is  found  more  pronounced.  There  are 
in  it  hardly  any  half-tones  or  shadings  of  character  as  in 
the  Synoptics.  They  who  do  not  believe  in  Jesus,  who 
are  not  "  His  own,"  are  reprobates.^  "  We  know  that  we 
are  of  God,"  says  John  in  his  First  Epistle,  "  and  the 
whole  world  lieth  in  the  evil  one."  ^ 

^  Rom.  i.  2  Gal.  v.  19-23. 

*  See  Lecture  II.  *  i  John  v.  19. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Ch7dst  necessarily  Conscious  f    361 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  this  language  is  coloured 
by  the  circumstances  which  confronted  the  apostles.  All 
that  was  noblest  in  the  moral  life  of  men  was  found  only 
among  believers ;  all  that  was  basest,  among  the  rejecters 
and  despisers  of  the  faith.  When  John  declares,  "  In 
this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest,  and  the  children  of 
the  devil :  whosoever  doeth  not  righteousness  is  not  of 
God,  neither  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother,"  ^  he  does 
not  merely  mean  to  affirm  that  the  acceptance  of  Jesus 
as  the  Messiah,  and  of  God's  love  revealed  in  Him,  is 
false  and  hypocritical  if  it  does  not  lead  to  love  of  the 
brethren,  but  that  love  of  the  brethren  cannot  exist 
unless  it  springs  from  a  conscious  acceptance  of  Him. 
So  far  as  the  heathen  came  under  the  sway  of  this 
brotherly  affection,  they  passed  over  into  the  Christian 
fellowship.  For  them  the  moral  and  the  doctrinal  stood 
or  fell  together.  If  they  accepted  the  former  they 
welcomed  the  latter  also,  for  it  presented  no  real  obstacle 
to  belief. 

But  society,  as  it  is  now,  shows  a  very  different 
aspect.  The  power  of  Christianity  is  not,  so  to  speak, 
coterminous  with  the  visible  Church.  It  has  leavened 
and  illumined  social  and  political  life ;  it  has  set  up  its 
standard  of  ethics  even  among  those  who  repudiate  its 
creed,  and  won  from  them  often,  not  a  reluctant,  but  a 
willing  and  resolved  adherence.  Its  message  of  love 
toward  man  has  not  only  been  acknowledged  as  the 
highest  truth,  but  cordially  embraced  as  a  personal  duty 
by  a  great  part  of  what  John  terms  "  the  world,"  though 
for  them  it  does  not  consciously  draw  its  inspiration  and 
motive    from    the    prior   love  of   God    in    Christ.        The 

^  I  Jolm  iii.  10. 


J 


62      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect. 


intellectual  difficulties  which  they  feel  regarding  the 
creed  of  the  Church  did  not  exist  for  men  in  the  first 
century.  It  was  not  that  they  were  unspeculative.  The 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  a 
sufficient  proof  of  that.  Speculative  thought  then  busied 
itself  continually  about  the  nature  and  the  self-revelation 
of  God.  But  while  Gnostic  theories  might  require  re- 
futation or  correction,  they  all  started  from  the  same 
fundamental  conception,  which  Christianity  teaches,  of 
God  as  personal  and  self-manifesting.  //  is  this  basal 
conception  itself  zvhich  is  now  so  widely  in  dispute.  The 
idea  of  Evolution  as  the  regulating  principle  of  the 
universe,  to  which  Hegel  gave  philosophic  expression, 
and  which  has  recently  gained  its  confirmed  hold  upon 
men's  minds  by  its  application  to  the  discoveries  of 
science,  has  raised  profound  questions  as  to  the  very 
possibility  of  a  monotheistic  faith.  The  scientific  in- 
vestigations which  increasingly  disclose  what  may  be 
termed  the  marks  of  an  intelligent  design  in  nature,  at 
the  same  time  make  it  more  difficult  for  many  to  see  any 
room  or  function  for  a  personal  God.  Their  blindness 
to  Him  may  frequently  be  due  to  that  strange  miscon- 
ception of  His  work  which  led  Carlyle  to  exclaim,  "  He 
does  nothing,"  ^  as  if  God  had  to  appear  visibly,  and 
work,  not  through  nature  and  man,  but  apart  from  them, 
in  order  to  accredit  His  presence.  But  it  is  not  always 
so;  for  Neo-Hegelianism,  which  in  spirit  and  purpose  is 
intensely  religious,  and  everywhere  finds  a  present  God, 
has  its  greatest  difficulty  in  showing  that  this  immanent 
God  has  any  transcendent  personality  at  all. 

Of  course,  we   who  believe  in   Christ  hold   that   the 

^  Life  in  London,  vol.  ii.  p.  2S0. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Chinst  necessarily  Conscious  f    363 

moral  facts  regarding  ourselves  and  God  which  the 
Christian  revelation  as  a  whole — in  the  life  of  Christ,  and 
in  the  experience  and  witness  of  His  Church — verifies  to 
us,  have  an  imperative  force  outweighing  all  speculative 
doubts.  But  it  is  the  Church  itself  which,  under  the 
exigencies  of  Western  logic,  has  entered  the  speculative 
sphere,  and  it  ought  to  recognise  that  the  faith  it  pro- 
claims presents  to-day  perplexing  problems  which  were 
never  raised  by  its  first  promulgation.  It  cannot  content 
itself  with  merely  repeating  the  apostolic  word  that  "  the 
whole  world  lieth  in  the  evil  one,"  but  must  face  in  some 
way  the  existence  of  a  Christian  morality  and  spirit,  out- 
side the  body  of  confessing  disciples.  To  speak  of  those 
who  manifest  this  spirit  as  belonging  to  the  same  class 
as  the  Pharisees,  whose  conduct,  in  traducing  Jesus  and 
calling  good  evil,  led  Him  to  warn  them  of  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Spirit  which  hath  no  forgiveness,^  is 
simply  to  invert  the  truth,  and  is  perhaps  to  incur  the 
danger  of  committing  the  unforgivable  sin  itself,  in  that 
it  is  a  refusal  in  the  interest  of  a  preconceived  theory  to 
acknowledge  the  goodness  to  which  conscience  testifies. 
For  they  bear  no  antipathy  to  Christ,  but  a  profound 
sympathy  and  reverence  towards  Him  and  the  qualities 
of  character  which  He  declared  blessed.     Just  as  many  a 


^  Both  Matthew  (xii.  24-32)  and  Mark  (iii.  22-30)  declare  that  it  was  in 
reference  to  the  Pharisees'  contemptuous  description  of  His  miracles  as 
wrought  by  the  devil,  and  the  spirit  of  hatred  to  good  which  they  thereby 
showed,  that  Jesus  spoke  of  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  this  is  the  true  historical  setting  of  the  words,  though  Luke 
(xii.  10-12)  puts  them  in  a  different  connection.  Godet  argues,  however, 
that  in  the  Third  Gospel  they  refer,  not  to  what  immediately  precedes,  on 
which  they  seem  to  have  no  direct  bearing,  but  to  the  same  circumstances  as 
Matthew  and  Mark  relate,  and  which  Luke  records  in  the  previous  chapter 
(xi.  15).     Cojmn.  on  St.  Luke,  in  loc. 


364      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  J^idgnient.    [Lect. 

sincerely  pious  Jew  might,  on  account  of  his  Pharisaic 
education  and  prejudices,  see  in  Jesus  no  Messiah  but 
only  a  visionary  enthusiast ;  so,  under  the  influence  of 
scientific  conceptions  carried  into  a  spiritual  sphere  to 
which  they  do  not  apply,  such  may  see  in  Him  no  more 
than  the  noblest  of  the  sons  of  men.  They  may,  like 
the  Jew,  though  from  other  causes,  utter  "  words  against 
the  Son  of  Man,"  but  they  do  not  commit  the  sin  against 
the  Holy  Spirit  by  insulting  and  hating  the  goodness  of 
which  He  is  the  inspirer  in  humanity.  Their  doubts  as 
to  a  personal  God  will  be  no  longer  possible  when  the 
imperfect  conditions  and  distorting  atmosphere  of  our 
mortal  thought  have  vanished,  when  in  the  light  of 
Christ's  revealed  presence  they  "  see  light,"  and  discover 
that  all  goodness  in  man  has  its  source  and  centre  in  an 
ever-living  Lord.  And  if  it  should  prove  that,  though 
here  they  did  not  recognise  Him,  He  recognises  them 
there ^  would  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  seem  less 
glorious  than  the  Church  has  sometimes  thought  it  to 
be  ?  And  may  it  not  be  that  God  is  seeking  to  teach 
us  by  the  very  existence  of  such  souls  among  us,  that 
the  redemption  of  Christ  has  a  significance  of  which  the 
apostles  at  the  beginning  of  the  Church's  career  did  not 
and  could  not  dream  ? 

It  may  be  said  that  these  are  exceptional  instances 
of  nobleness,  very  different  from  the  men  and  women  of 
everyday  life  with  their  mixed  characters  of  good  and 
evil.  They  are  exceptional,  and  I  have  spoken  of  them 
in  particular,  because  they  constitute  a  conspicuous 
challenge  to  the  Church  to  say  how  it  correlates  the 
fact  of  their  goodness  with  its  doctrine  of  Christ  as  the 
one   mediator  of  the   Father's  will,  and    the  centre  and 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    365 

consummation  of  all  good  in  the  universe.  But  the 
principle  of  judgment  which  governs  their  destiny  applies 
to  all  men.  If  it  exists  at  all,  it  is  a  universal  law. 
They  are  but  an  example,  "  writ  large,"  of  what  concerns 
humanity. 

It  is  indeed  to  be  confessed  that  the  ultimate 
separation  of  men  into  righteous  and  wicked  does  not 
apparently  correspond  with  the  facts  of  human  life  as 
they  exist  around  us.  Nothing  is  more  obvious,  nor  to 
the  religious  soul  at  times  more  distressing,  than  the 
prevailing  colourlessness  and  indecisiveness  of  character 
in  mankind.  There  are  some  who  evidently  bear  the 
image  and  superscription  of  the  King  in  their  exceeding 
goodness  and  grace.  There  are  others  whose  lives  are  a 
defiance  of  all  moral  law.  But  between  these  two 
extremes  lies  the  vast  territory  of  the  morally  uncertain 
and  irresolute,  whose  whole  conduct  suggests  a  divided 
heart.  This,  however,  is  a  difficulty  which  Christianity 
on  any  construction  has  to  face.  It  is  not  confined  to 
the  world  outside  the  Church.  It  exists,  perhaps,  in  its 
most  aggravated  form  within  the  Church.  I  do  not  refer 
to  those  of  its  members  who,  though  they  may  avoid  the 
gross  sins  which,  by  a  most  inadequate  application  of  the 
word,  it  terms  "  scandalous,"  yet  violate  in  conduct  and 
temper  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  life,  but  to  the  immense 
number  of  well-meaning  people  who  are  "  at  ease  in  Zion." 
The  Church  charitably  cherishes  the  hope  of  their  final 
salvation.  On  what  ground  ?  On  the  supposition  that 
there  may  be,  notwithstanding  all  appearances,  an  inward 
change  of  heart.  It  may  be  but  a  feeble  germ  of  faith, 
but  it  establishes  such  a  relation  between  them  and 
Christ  as   makes   them   the  inheritors  of  His  redeeming 


o 


66      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  JiLdgment.     [Lect. 


life.  But  if  such  a  decisive  change,  which  it  is  impossible 
for  human  knowledge  to  pronounce  upon,  is  conceivable 
in  their  case,  is  it  not  equally  conceivable  in  the  case 
of  what  I  have  called  unconscious  faith  ?  We  cannot 
measure  the  degree  of  receptivity  to  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
which  is  needed  to  give  a  determinate  cast  to  character 
on  the  side  of  right  and  truth.  Manifestly  that  degree 
is  no  constant  quantity.  The  same  amount  of  recep- 
tivity which  in  one  man  means  a  growing  force  of  good 
within  him,  means  in  another  a  declining  moral  life. 
"  If,"  says  Professor  Salmond,  "  there  be  at  the  decisive 
point  of  life,  however  late  it  may  come,  the  tremulous 
inclination  of  the  soul  to  God,  the  feeblest  presence  of 
that  which  makes  for  righteousness  and  faith,  in  heathen 
or  in  Christian,  it  will  be  recognised  of  the  Judge,  and 
under  the  conditions  of  the  new  life  it  will  grow  to  more 
in  the  power  and  the  blessedness  of  good."  ^  But  such 
a  tremulous  inclination  can  only,  on  Dr.  Salmond's  view 
of  a  final  separation  of  souls,  lead  to  an  ultimate  accept- 
ance and  bliss,  provided  it  represents  a  decisive  movement 
of  the  heart,  or,  to  use  Mr.  Gladstone's  words,  "  a  vital 
warmth  which  is  ascending,  not  one  which  is  sinking 
into  the  abyss."  ^  Whether  it  is  the  one  or  the  other  is 
only  known  to  Him  who  can  estimate  all  the  cross- 
currents, intellectual  and  moral,  that  have  beat  upon 
that  soul's  life,  and  so  can  discern  its  inherent  responsi- 
bility. He  who  sees  in  the  apparently  careless  Christian 
a  germ  of  true  receptivity  to  good,  may  also  see  it  in  the 
apparently  equally  careless  life  of  one  whom  either 
ignorance  or   intellectual   perplexity  has   kept  back  from 

^  Christian  Doctrine  of  Jniinortalitf,  p.  672. 
*  Studies  subsidiary  to  Butler^s  IVorks^  p.  207. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?     ^^^j 

the  confession  of  Christ.  We  are  here  in  the  presence 
of  the  ultimate  mysteries  of  the  soul.  "  Let  us  fall  into 
the  hand  of  the  Lord,  for  His  mercies  are  great ;  and  let 
me  not  fall   into  the  hand   of  man."  ^ 

That  there  is  a  central  bias  or  trend  in  every 
character  fixing  its  essential  quality  as  good  or  evil,  is 
the  presupposition  of  the  whole  Biblical  revelation.  It 
is  involved  in  the  very  idea  of  a  moral  universe  that 
evil  shall  finally  be  eliminated  and  the  kingdom  of  good 
established,  ''  where  One  Will  alone  is  loved,  and  only 
One  is  done."  ^  But  it  is  neither  according  to  Scripture 
nor  to  moral  instinct  to  depict  the  final  judgment  as 
implying  that  all  in  whom  the  same  set  of  character 
exists  receive  an  equal  reward  or  penalty.  It  is  strange 
how  much  the  doctrine  of  a  destiny  proportionate  to 
the  measure  of  fidelity  or  failure,  so  perpetually  on  our 
Lord's  lips,  has  become  almost  "  a  lost  theological  prin- 
ciple." ^  It  must  be  recovered  and  emphasised  if  we  are 
to  bring  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  a  final  judgment 
and  a  final  kingdom  of  righteousness  into  relation  with 
the  moral  facts  of  life. 

All  theological  thought  worthy  of  the  name  recog- 
nises that  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  exercises  its 
beneficent  power  far  beyond  the  sphere  in  which  the  ordin- 

^  2  Sam.  xxiv.  14. 

2  "  The  Christian  doctrine  of  a  final  judgment  is  not  the  putting  of  an 
arbitrary  term  to  the  course  of  history  ;  it  is  a  doctrine  without  which  history 
ceases  to  be  capable  of  moral  construction."  Denney,  Stttdies  in  Theology, 
p.  240.  "  That  speculation,"  says  Martensen,  "which  rests  satisfied  with  the 
words  of  the  poet,  '  This  world's  history  is  its  judgment  too,'  as  an  ample 
exposition  of  the  '  Last  Day '  of  Christianity,  really  transmutes  God's  right- 
eousness itself  into  a  Tantalus,  in  continual  unreality,  pursuing  a  goal  which  it 
never  can  reach."  See  the  whole  passage,  which  is  admirable,  Dogmatics, 
pp.  465,  466. 

^  Salmond,  ibid.  p.  670. 


o 


68      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect. 


ary  means  of  grace  operate.  While  the  Roman  CathoHc 
Church  has  consistently  declared  through  the  centuries, 
extra  ecclesiam  nulla  salus^  yet,  as  Cardinal  Newman 
points  out,^  it  does  not  follow,  because  there  is  no  Church 
but  one  which  has  the  evangelical  gifts  and  privileges  to 
bestow,  that  therefore  no  one  can  be  saved  without  the 
intervention  of  that  one  Church.  It  is  the  normal  ap- 
pointed medium  of  saving  grace,  but  He  who  appointed 
it  is  above  His  own  agent,  and  may  act  through  other 
media  if  it  please  Him.  Hence  the  Roman  Church 
holds  along  with  this  principle  of  exclusive  salvation,  the 
doctrine  of  "  invincible  ignorance,"  or  that  it  is  possible 
to  belong  to  the  soul  of  the  Church  without  belonging  to 
the  body.  Both  dogmas  are  set  forth  authoritatively  by 
Pope  Pius  IX.  in  the  same  Encyclical ;  and  in  an  Allo- 
cution nine  years  earlier  he  refuses  to  give  any  definition 
of  what  invincible  ignorance  is.^  "  Who  would  be  so 
bold  as  to  claim  that  he  could  fix  the  limits  of  this 
ignorance  according  to  the  measure  and  variety  of  peoples, 
countries,  minds,  and  so  many  other  things?"^  The 
same  distinction  is  acknowledged  by  Protestants  when 
they  speak  of  the  "  uncovenanted   mercies  of  God,"  ^  the 

^  "A  Letter  to  His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  on  occasion  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  recent  Expostulation,"  p.  122. 

'Ibid.  p.  123. 

2*'Quis  tantum  sibi  arrogct,  ut  hujusmodi  ignorantirc  designare  limites 
qucat,  juxta  populorum,  rcgionum,  ingeniorum,  aliarumque  rcrum  tarn 
nuiltaruni  rationem  et  varietatem?  '' — Dec.  9,  1854. 

*  This  was  a  favourite  expression  with  the  older  type  of  High  Churchmen. 
It  is  customary  to  regard  it  as  supercilious.  But  it  is  not  necessarily  so.  It 
may  simply  imply  that,  while  a  man  is  loyal  to  what  he  regards  as  the  "  faith 
delivered  to  the  saints,"  he  has  the  honesty  to  recognise  the  existence  of  moral 
and  spiritual  excellence  which  he  cannot  correlate  with  it.  The  narrowness 
lies  with  those  who  hold  a  historic  and  well-defined  faith  with  no  such  reserve 
of  hope. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  CIiiHst  necessarily  ConscioiLsf    369 

belief  in  which,  as  extending  to  many  outside  the  Church, 
is  quite  compatible  with  the  most  strenuous  conviction 
that  Christ  is  the  only  Way  to  the  Father.  The  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  and  the  Confession  of  Faith  equally 
anathematise  those  who  hold  that  a  man  may  "  be  saved 
by  the  law  or  sect  which  he  professeth,  so  that  he  be 
diligent  to  frame  his  life  according  to  that  law  and 
the  light  of  nature."^  Every  believer  in  Christianity  is 
bound  to  join  in  this  repudiation  of  the  doctrine  that 
salvation  may  be  merited  by  men,  if  only  they  perform 
good  works  according  to  their  lights.  For  such  a 
doctrine,  as  Dr.  Hort  says,  "  resolves  God's  dealings  with 
men  into  a  mere  prize-giving  and  prize-refusing,  in  which 
the  one  uniform  prize  is  something  altogether  separate 
from  the  performance  which  wins  it,  and  nothing  more  is 
demanded  of  the  prize-giver  than  to  see  fair-play."  ^  The 
only  salvation  for  men  is  that  which  comes  from  Him 
who  by  His  Incarnation  has  won  a  new  life  for  humanity ', 
and  it  has  to  be  received,  not  earned.  The  believer  does 
not  earn  it  because  he  accepts  certain  Christian  dogmas ; 
he  becomes  a  partaker  of  it,  because  of  his  receptivity 
to  Christ's  life.  And  if  any  who  hold  other  religious 
opinions  are  saved,  it  is  not  on  the  ground  of  these 
opinions  or  of  their  own  good  works,  but  solely  because, 
as  seen  by  God,  they  possess  something  of  the  same 
receptivity  to  the  Spirit  who  proceedeth  from  the  Father 
through  the  Son. 

Some  such  conception  of  an  unrealised  or  unconscious 
relation  to  Christ  seems  to  me  indispensable,  if  on  the 
one  hand  we  are  to  do  justice  to  plain  moral   facts,  and 

1  Article  XVIII.  ;  cf.  Confession  of  Faith,  chap.  x. 

2  Life  and  Letters  of  F.  J.  A,  Hort,  vol.  ii.  p,  335, 
24 


370     The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect. 

on  the  other  are  to  give  to  Christ's  redeeming  work  its 
central  place  in  the  deliverance  and  consummation  of 
humanity.  When  it  is  omitted  or  denied,  there  inevitably 
grows  up  a  feeling  of  disproportion  between  an  Incar- 
nation which  cannot  but  have  a  universal  bearing  on  the 
race,  and  the  limited  area  of  human  life  in  which  the 
ordinary  means  of  conveying  its  grace  are  in  any  true 
sense  effective.  Indeed,  the  Gospel  is  apt  in  that  case 
to  lose  its  gracious  character,  which  is  its  very  heart,  and 
to  assume  the  aspect  of  a  menacing  challenge  which 
subdues  by   fear  or  stings   to  revolt. 

Nor  does  this  idea  of  unconscious  faith,  expressed  by 
the  theories  of  invincible  ignorance  or  the  uncovenanted 
mercies  of  God,  involve  any  surrender  or  depreciation 
of  the  historic  faith  in  its  completeness.  Surely  the  in- 
tensity with  which  the  Church  devotes  itself  to  foreign 
missions  does  not  depend  on  the  conviction  that  the 
heathen  will  perish  eternally  if  they  die  without  believing 
in  a  Saviour  of  whom  they  know  nothing.  If  it  does,  it 
is  likely  to  ebb  more  and  more.  There  is  much  greater 
probability  that  Christians  will  be  condemned  for  their 
remissness  in  not  carrying  the  Gospel  to  the  heathen, 
than  that  the  heathen  will  be  condemned  for  not  fulfil- 
ling impossible  conditions.  The  Church  is  irresistibly 
borne  forward  to  missionary  work  by  what  it  believes  to 
be  the  direct  command  of  Christ;  above  all,  by  the 
impulse  of  His  Spirit  who  dwells  in  it,  and  fills  it  with 
His  passion  to  save  and  bless.  The  fact  that  there  may 
be  unrevealed  purposes  of  grace  towards  the  heathen 
abroad  who  are  ignorant  of  the  Gospel,  or  towards  many 
at  home  who  apparently  reject  it,  docs  not  affect  by  an 
iota    the    Church's    plain    duty.      It   has   a  definite  com- 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    371 

mission  to  fulfil  ;  it  knows  that  there  is  but  one  Way  of 
salvation,  and  that  the  only  faith  in  Christ  of  which 
Scripture  speaks  is  the  conscious  surrender  to  Him  as 
a  personal  Redeemer  and  Lord.  Loyalty  to  Him  and 
compassion  for  all  who  know  not  the  blessedness  of  this 
faith,  alike  compel  it  to  set  forth  His  claims  upon  human 
hearts  in  all  their  absoluteness  and  graciousness.  It  sees 
that,  however  it  may  be  with  some  elect  spirits,  the  lack 
of  belief  in  a  Christ  who  died  and  rose  means  for  the 
great  mass  of  men  the  loss  of  the  one  guarantee  and 
inspiration  for  a  pure  and  self-sacrificing  character,  and 
of  all  real  hold  on  the  awful  solemnities  of  human  destiny. 
And  even  the  life  of  these  elect  spirits,  who  have  almost 
an  instinct  for  goodness,  is  without  the  inward  resources 
of  strength  and  consolation  which  spring  from  fellow- 
ship with  a  living  Lord  who  has  triumphed  over  sin  and 
death,  and  which  upbear  the  soul  amid  its  direst  distress 
and  endow  it  with  a  confident  hope  for  the  future  of  the 
race.  The  old  word  is  still  true :  "  This  is  the  victory 
that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith," -^  and  it  is 
the  very  tenacity  with  which  the  Church  maintains  and 
manifests  this  assured  historic  faith,  which  communicates 
much  of  its  own  spiritual  quickening  to  those  who  witness 
it  from  without. 

HI.  Very  many  who  have  felt  the  pressure  of  the 
problem  we  have  discussed,  have  sought  its  solution,  not 
in  a  deeper  conception  of  what  faith  here  and  now  in  its 
essence  is,  but  in  the  theory  of  an  Intermediate  State 
between  death  and  the  judgment,  in  which  those  who  on 
earth  have  welcomed  the  Gospel  shall  be  purified  of  their 
imperfections,    and    prepared    for   the   final    kingdom    of 

^  I  John  V.  4. 


3/2      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  J^tdpnent.    [Lect. 

blessedness ;  and  in  which  all,  whether  in  heathen  or 
Christian  lands,  who  have  had  no  true  probation  here, 
shall  have  the  offer  of  God's  mercy  in  Christ  made 
known  to  them.  I  am  not  insensible  to  the  high  motives 
that  have  led  some  men  to  this  belief.  It  is  usually 
called  a  "  pious  opinion,"  and  one  must  admit  that  the 
name  is  frequently  not  inappropriate,  as  what  are  termed 
pious  opinions  have  not  seldom  more  piety  in  them  than 
the  formal  creed  that  patronises  them. 

First  of  all,  then,  this  doctrine  has  not  arisen  from 
any  clear  declaration  in  Scripture.  The  two  passages  in 
the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  ^  which  its  advocates  chiefly 
rely  upon,  are  the  most  enigmatical  utterances  of  the 
apostolic  writings.  After  a  minute  and  dispassionate 
examination  of  all  the  factors  that  enter  into  a  right 
exegesis,  Professor  Salmond  asserts  that  "  in  both  para- 
graphs the  interpretation  which  leaves  most  unaccounted 
for,  and  does  least  justice  to  the  best  understood  terms, 
is  that  which  finds  in  them  the  disclosure  of  a  ministry 
of  grace  in  Hades."  ^  It  is  in  any  case  rather  ridiculous 
to  rest  a  doctrine  of  such  significance  on  phrases  that  are 
no  better  than  conundrums,  and  to  which  Augustine's 
words  regarding  Paul's  reference  to  the  "  Man  of  Sin " 
are  even  more  appropriate  than  in  their  original  appli- 
cation :  "  I  confess  that  I  am  entirely  ignorant  what  the 
apostle  meant."  ^  But  perhaps  it  would  be  too  much  to 
expect  some  modern  exegetes  to  make  so  humiliating 
an  admission.  Neither  Christ  nor  Paul  affords  us  any 
definite    conception    of    the    condition    of   souls    in    the 

^  Chaps,  iii.  19;  iv.  6. 

2  Christian  Doctrine  of  Immortality,  p.  485. 

'  •*  Ego  prorsus  quid  dixerit  fateor  mo  ignorare." 


IX.]   Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?     'i^']2j 

interval  between  death  and  the  judgment.  Rather  does 
their  thought  overleap  the  intervening  period.^  They 
speak  of  the  blessed  dead  as  in  sleep ;  but  the  term  is 
used  "  for  purposes  of  hope  and  comfort,  not  to  indicate 
a  space  of  unconsciousness."  This  vagueness  constitutes 
a  remarkable  contrast  to  the  insistence  with  which  the 
Church  has  striven  to  pierce  the  mystery. 

The  theory  of  an  intermediate  state  draws  its  real 
support,  not  from  exegetical  considerations,  though  these 
are  often  put  in  the  forefront,  but  from  certain  broad 
moral  necessities  which  it  appears  to  satisfy.  It  com- 
mends itself  to  those  who  hold  that  there  is  no  accept- 
ance or  rejection  of  Christ  except  that  which  is  conscious 
and  made  under  the  plain  offer  of  the  Gospel ;  and  who, 
since  the  requisite  condition  of  knowledge  does  not  exist 
in  the  present  life  in  the  case  either  of  the  heathen  or  of 
multitudes  in  Christendom,  find  in  an  intermediate  state 
of  probation  for  such  the  only  solution  compatible  with 
the  justice  of  the  final  judgment.  It  is  urged,  secondly, 
that    when    we    consider    the    soiled     lives    which    even 

^  The  apparent  exception  to  this,  in  Paul's  case,  is  2  Cor.  v.  i-8,  But  to 
suppose  that  he  there  teaches  the  assumption  by  the  soul  at  death  of  a 
temporary  (spiritual)  body,  to  be  worn  in  the  intermediate  state  till  the 
resurrection,  is  simply  literalistic  exegesis  run  mad.  Cf.  Salmond  {supra,  pp. 
562-568),  who  endorses  Dean  Plumptre's  saying,  that  it  is  a  "  manifest  fact 
that  the  intermediate  state  occupied  but  a  subordinate  position  in  St.  Paul's 
thoughts.  .  .  .  He  did  not  speculate  accordingly  about  that  state,  but  was 
content  to  rest  in  the  belief  that,  when  absent  from  the  body,  he  would  in 
some  more  immediate  sense  be  present  with  the  Lord."  Dr.  Bruce's  remark 
may  be  added  :  "  It  is  better  to  hold  that  the  apostle  had  no  clear  light  on 
the  subject  of  the  intermediate  state,  no  dogma  to  teach,  but  was  simply 
groping  his  way  like  the  rest  of  us,  and  that  what  we  are  to  find  in  2  Cor.  v. 
is  not  the  expression  of  a  definite  opinion,  far  less  the  revelation  of  a  truth 
to  be  received  as  an  item  in  the  creed,  as  to  the  life  beyond,  but  the  utterance 
of  a  wish  or  hope."  St.  PattVs  Conception  of  Christianity,  p.  385.  On  the 
meaning  of  the  word  "Paradise"  in  Christ's  promise  to  the  dying  thief,  see 
Salmond,  supra,  pp.  349,  350. 


374      ^-^^^  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect 

believers  carry  with  them  into  the  unseen,  it  is  unreason- 
able to  suppose  that  in  a  moment  they  are  miraculously 
transformed  into  spotless  goodness.  Surely  advance  in 
holiness  implies  thej-e  as  here  a  gradual  moral  process  by 
purifying  chastisements.  And  the  intervening  period 
between  death  and  the  judgment,  being  essentially 
transitional,  as  the  disembodiment  of  the  spirit  shows, 
precisely  answers  to  the  conception  of  a  preparatory 
state  previous  to  the  final  kingdom  of  bliss.  Though 
the  soul  be  adjudged  righteous,  it  does  not  enter  on  its 
full  felicity  till  the  consummation  of  all  things.  Nor 
indeed  can  it ; — "  they  without  us  shall  not  be  made 
perfect." 

I.  While  I  am  not  prepared  to  affirm  that  the  Scrip- 
ture usage  which  always  represents  the  judgment  as  based 
on  the  "  deeds  done  in  the  body,"  ^  absolutely  negates  the 
idea  of  a  probationary  intermediate  state,  it  certainly 
directs  all  our  thoughts  away  from  it.  It  is  easy  to 
argue  that  the  earthly  life  is  still  judged,  though  the 
judgment  may  extend  also  beyond  its  limits ;  but  the 
argument  pretty  well  empties  the  phrase  of  its  solemn 
meaning.  Nor  can  it  be  maintained  that  the  words 
have  a  primary  and  normal  reference  to  those  who  live 
in  the  Christian  dispensation,  and  do  not  take  account 
of  what  may  be  termed  exceptional  cases.  For  the  great 
parable  in  Matthew  xxv.  shows  that  it  is  on  the  basis 
of  their  earthly  record  that  the  heathen  are  judged.  So 
far  as  Scripture  teaching  goes,  there  is  no  indication  that 
any  man,  or  class  of  men,  is  judged  on  any  other  basis. 

But  further,  the  extension  of  probation  beyond  death 
for  some  onI}\  introduces   confusion   into  the  whole   char- 

*  Cf.,  c.^...  Malt.  xxv.  31-46;  2  Coi.  V.  10;  Kcv.  xx.  12,  13. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Ch'ist  necessarily  Conscious?    375 

acter  of  the  judgment.  "  When  we  think,"  says  Dean 
Luckock,  "  of  the  conditions  of  the  other  world,  and 
especially  the  absence  of  all  those  carnal  temptations 
which  are  such  a  hindrance  to  every  effort  for  the 
renewal  of  man  in  the  image  of  God,  we  cannot  but  go 
on  and  say  that  it  may  be,  yea,  it  must  be,  easier  in 
the  spiritual  sphere  to  yield  the  obedience  which  the 
Almighty  Sovereign  claims."  ^  But  this  hypothesis  of 
compensating  opportunities  in  the  other  world  which 
are  to  counterbalance  the  disadvantages  of  this,  does 
not  so  much  resolve  as  perplex  the  problem.  Those 
carnal  temptations  which  no  longer  distress  the  soul 
whose  probation  is  postponed  to  the  future  state,  are  the 
occasion  of  many  a  man's  fall  and  condemnation  whose 
opportunity  of  grace  is  exhausted  on  earth.  If  he  too 
had  been  delivered  from  their  thrall,  he  might  have  kept 
his  loyalty  to  God.  To  say  that  ive  are  no  judges  of 
the  measure  of  responsibility,  and  that  God,  whose  it  is 
alone  to  judge,  is  able  to  secure  equal  justice  for  all,  is 
not  relevant  to  the  point;  for  this  applies  to  His  judg- 
ment, whether  human  opportunity  be  confined  to  this 
life  or  extend  beyond  it.  The  question  is,  how  far  such 
extension  enables  us  to  see  a  justice  in  God's  judgment 
of  men  which  we  cannot  perceive  in  that  judgment  if  it  is 
based  wholly  on  the  present  life.  Granted  that,  on  any 
theory,  inequalities  of  spiritual  opportunity  will  remain ; 
on  this  theory  they  are  aggravated  to  the  last  degree,  in 
that  the  contrast  is  no  longer  between  different  con- 
ditions in  the  same  state  of  being,  but  between  two 
different  states  of  existence.  If  we  are  to  allow  our  idea 
of  justice  to   influence   us,  we   would   surely  say  that  it 

^  The  Intermediate  State,  p.  192. 


3/6      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Judgment.    [Lect. 

would  be  desirable  for  all  men  to  have  their  period  of 
probation  carried  into  a  world  where  the  seductions  of 
the  flesh  exist  no  more.^ 

We  delude  ourselves  if  we  imagine  that  by  any 
hypothesis  as  to  the  future  we  can  redress  the  inequalities 
of  earth,  and  secure  what  we  would  call  a  fair  and  equal 
opportunity  to  all  men.  Even  though  you  postulate  an 
environment  after  death  wholly  free  from  the  thousand 
evil  influences  that  here  have  degraded  a  soul,  yet  that 
soul  bears  its  degradation  with  it  into  the  life  to  come. 
It  does  not  start  under  its  new  conditions  where  many 
others  start.  But  if  there  be  still  that  germ  of  good  in 
it  remaining  from  its  earthly  life,  which  is  capable  of 
development  into  a  true  faith  in  Christ,  then  God,  "  in 
whom,  is  no  before,"  does  not  need  to  await  its  develop- 
ment after  death  to  adjudge  to  the  soul  its  true  destiny. 

2.  But,  leaving  aside  the  question  of  probation,  is  there 
not  need  of  an  intermediate  state  for  the  training  afid 
purifying  of  the  soul,  so  that  it  may  be  prepared  for  the 
fellowship  of  the  saints  and  the  vision  of  God  ?  Is  not 
the  statement  of  the  Shorter  Catechism,  that  "  the  souls  of 
believers  are  at  their  death  made  perfect  in  holiness,  and 
do  immediately  pass  into  glory,"  ^  a  direct  contradiction 
of  all  that  we  know  of  the  processes  of  the  moral  life  ? 
But  the  suddenness  of  the  transformation  which  is  here 
objected  to,  is  involved,  it  appears  to  me,  in  any  view  which 

'  In  the  view  of  some,  the  intermediate  state  is  a  continuation  for  all, 
whether  righteous  or  unrighteous,  of  the  probationary  character  of  the  present 
life.  It  is  little  to  say  that  this  conception  of  it  is  not  supported  by  a  single 
indisputable  verse  of  Scripture  ;  what  is  of  more  importance  is  that  it  is 
extremely  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  reconcile  it  with  the  whole  tone  anil 
presupposition  of  New  Testament  teaching. 

^Question  37.  Cf.  Confession  of  Faith^  chap,  xxxii.  ;  Larger  Ca(cchis//i, 
Question  86. 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  Christ  necessarily  Conscious?    377 

affirms  a  second  coming  of  the  Lord,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  an  undefiled  kingdom.  If  the  disembodied  soul 
is  to  retain  the  essential  characteristics  which  belong 
to  it  in  its  earthly  experience,  if  the  innate  tendency  to 
evil  which  so  plainly  marks  it  here^  and  which  we  term 
original  sin,  is  to  exist  thei^e  too  as  an  element  in  its 
spiritual  struggle,  then  no  degree  of  growth  that  we  can 
conceive  will  bring  it  to  perfect  goodness.  The  elimina- 
tion of  that  tendency  can  never  come  by  development, 
but  only  by  miracle  or  sudden  renewal  of  the  inner  being; 
and  the  miracle  would  not  be  less  in  the  case  of  advanced 
than  of  immature  goodness. 

The  same  idea  of  a  special  supernatural  act  under- 
lies the  apostolic  conception  of  a  regenerated  universe, 
a  transfigured  environment  of  souls,  at  the  revelation  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  not  the  instantaneousness  of  the 
soul's  renewal  which  constitutes  any  difficulty  for  those 
who  believe  in  Christ,  but  the  unwarranted  notion  so 
often  bound  up  with  it,  that  the  perfection  of  the  soul 
implies  that  it  is  henceforth  beyond  the  need  of  growth, 
— a  notion  that  has  no  ground  in  Scripture  or  reason. 
From  the  ultimate  kingdom  of  the  Most  High  evil  is 
shut  out  ;  but  there,  as  truly  as  on  earth,  the  finite  soul, 
if  it  is  to  live,  cannot  cease  to  develop.  Its  perfection 
simply  means  its  freedom  from  sin  ;  it  does  not  mean  the 
equalising  of  all  capacities,  or  the  abolition  of  the  law  of 
progress.  The  difference,  then,  between  the  doctrine 
which  affirms  the  immediate  entrance  of  the  faithful  at 
death  into  the  light  of  God's  presence,  and  that  of  an 
intermediate  state   of    purification,^   is    simply    this,   that 

^  Dr.  Hort  says,  "  The  idea  of  purgation,  of  cleansing  as  by  fire,  seems  to 
me  inseparable  from  what  the  Bible  teaches  us  of  the  divine  chastisements  ;  and 


^yS      The  Conditions  of  the  Final  Jttdgment.    [Lect. 

while  both  declare  that  the  righteous  enter  into  a  condi- 
tion where  they  grow  in  goodness,  the  former  doctrine 
places  the  growth  after  God  has  spoken  His  transform- 
ing word  eliminating  the  soul's  sinfulness,  and  the  latter 
conceives  of  this  growth  as  a  continuation,  though  under 
happier  opportunities,  of  the  soul's  earthly  struggle,  and 
as  thus  endowing  it  with  a  greater  relative  fitness  for 
undergoing  the  renewal  of  the  great  day,  and  for  behold- 
ing at  last  the  Beatific  Vision. 

Neither  the  one  doctrine  nor  the  other  is  free  from 
grave  perplexity.  Neither  can  be  made  to  correspond 
with  the  view  of  the  future  judgment  in  Christ's  parable. 
For,  whether  souls  are  at  death  assigned  to  their  final 
destiny  or  pass  through  a  temporary  period  of  training 
and  cleansing,  they  must  in  either  case,  ere  the  day  of 
judgment,  know  the  standard  by  which  they  shall  be 
tried.  There  is  no  room,  certainly  none  on  the  former 
theory,  for  the  surprise  expressed  both  by  the  righteous 
and  the  wicked,  according  to  Christ's  picture,  at  the 
verdicts  of  the  Judge.  Yet  the  surprise  belongs  to  the 
essential  teaching  of  the  parable.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
whole  period  between  death  and  the  judgment  is  left  by 
Scripture  in  shadow.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  our 
Protestant  Confessions,  in  speaking  so  confidently  about 

though  little  is  directly  said  respecting  the  future  state,  it  seems  to  me  incredible 
that  the  divine  chastisements  should  in  this  respect  change  their  character 
when  this  visible  life  is  ended.  ...  I  do  not  believe  that  God's  purposes  of 
love  can  ever  cease  towards  us  in  any  stage  of  our  existence,  or  that  they  can 
accomplish  themselves  by  our  purification  and  perfection  without  painful  pro- 
cesses." Life  and  Letters^  vol.  ii.  p.  336.  Such  a  conception  of  purification 
through  pain  may  be  tenable  regarding  the  intermediate  state,  just  because  it 
is  in  that  case  a  transitional  experience.  But  is  Dr.  Hort's  idea  of  its  con- 
tinuance so  long  as  the  soul  exists  compati])le  with  the  Biblical  representation 
of  the  condition  of  the  righteous  after  the  Last  Judgment  and  of  the  sinless 
character  of  ihc  final  kingdom? 


IX.]    Is  Faith  in  CliJ'ist  necessarily  Conscio2ts?    379 

it,  do  not  go  beyond  their  brief.  But  they  are  un- 
doubtedly true  to  the  strain  of  Scripture  as  a  whole,  so 
far  as  they  insist  on  placing  the  emphasis  of  moral 
decision  within  the  present  life.  And  if  that  be  so,  we 
are  driven  to  reconsider  whether  the  traditional  idea  of 
the  nature  of  that  decision,  the  idea,  ?>.,  of  faith  in  Christ 
as   necessarily  conscious,  is  adequate  to  the  facts. 


I  have  thus  sought  in  these  Lectures  to  show  the 
reasonableness  of  that  faith  which  sees  in  a  historic 
personality  the  Incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Son,  an  In- 
carnation which  is  at  once  the  revelation  of  the  divine 
ground  underlying  the  human  sonship  that  sin  has 
marred,  and  also  the  supreme  act  by  which  human  son- 
ship  is  restored  and  realised.  But  just  because  it  is  the 
special  interposition  of  the  Eternal  in  time,  not  merely 
for  the  emancipation  and  perfection  of  humanity,  but  for 
the  consummation  of  God's  entire  purpose  in  creation,  it 
is  much  more  likely  that  human  thought  tends  to  limit 
than  to  exaggerate  its  beneficent  power,  and  the  con- 
ditions under  which  that  power  operates  even  in  time. 
"  Now  we  see  in  a  mirror  darkly :  but  then  face  to  face." 


NOTES    TO    THE    LECTURES. 


LECTURE   I. 

NOTE  1.     See  p.  lo. 
The  Greek  and  Christian  Ideals  of  Conduct. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  difficulty  for  the  critic  of  the  Hfe 
and  thought  of  the  Greeks  is  "  to  seize  exactly  that  which  is 
Hellenic  —  enduring  and  common  to  the  race,  not  transient 
and  due  to  individuals — in  their  religion  and  their  ethics." 
There  are,  certainly,  great  divergences  between  the  thought  of 
the  Homeric  period  and  that  of  the  dramatists  and  philosophers 
of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  B.C.  But  even  with  the  in- 
evitable discrediting  of  the  earlier  polytheism  and  the  emergence 
of  deeper  ethical  conceptions,  the  aesthetic  tendency  of  the 
Greek  mind  remained  its  dominant  characteristic.  Fresh  ele- 
ments came  into  view  as  involved  in  the  ideal  of  conduct ;  but 
the  ideal  itself  was  still  that  of  harmony,  proportion,  balance. 
The  key-word  was  iripas,  limit  or  measure,  which  was  the  mark 
of  the  highest  reason  and  the  highest  moral  good.  The  airapov, 
the  unlimited,  the  immeasurable,  was  the  symbol  of  evil,  of 
misery. 

"  Beauty  to  the  Greeks  was  one  aspect  of  the  universal 
synthesis,  commensurate  with  all  that  is  fair  in  manners  and 
comely  in  morals.  It  was  the  harmony  of  man  with  nature  in  a 
well-balanced  and  complete  humanity,  the  bloom  of  health  upon 
a  conscious  being,  satisfied,  as  the  flowers  and  beasts  and  stars 
are  satisfied,  with  the  conditions  of  temporal  existence.     It  was 

381 


382  Notes  lo  Lecture  I. 

the  joy-note  of  the  whole  world,  and  echoed  by  the  sole  being 
who  could  comprehend  it — Man.  .  .  .  When  we  arrive  at  Aristotle, 
who  yields  the  abstract  of  all  that  previously  existed  in  the  Greek 
mind,  we  see  that  the  scientific  spirit  has  achieved  a  perfect 
triumph.  His  science  is  the  correlative  in  the  region  of  pure 
thought  to  the  Art  which  in  Sculpture  had  pursued  an  un- 
interrupted course  of  natural  evolution." — J.  A.  Symonds,  The 
Greek  Foets^  3rd  ed.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  377-382. 

Now  Christianity  has  rendered  impossible  this  artistic  con- 
ception of  human  action,  by  its  revelation  of  the  infinite  element 
involved  in  all  conduct,  the  incalculable  character  of  the  positive 
obligations  inherent  in  every  relation  of  life.  It  has  thus  created 
a  dualism  in  man's  moral  consciousness  which  from  the  nature 
of  the  case  can  never  on  earth  be  brought  to  unity.  Whether 
men  accept  the  Christian  solution  of  the  ethical  problem  or  not, 
whereby  an  implicit  harmon)^  attained  here  is  to  be  followed  by 
an  explicit  harmony  hereafter,  the  problem  itself,  in  the  comjDlex 
character  which  Christianity  has  given  it,  remains  a  permanent 
one  for  progressive  human  experience. 

"  We  are  practically  agreed,"  says  Aubrey  Moore,  "  as  to  the 
moral  standard.  Cynic  and  Cyrenaic,  Stoic  and  Epicurean 
lived  different  lives,  and  justified  the  difference  by  their  moral 
theories.  For  us  one  type  of  character  has  won  its  way  to 
security,  the  Christian  type,  the  morality  of  the  Gospel.  So  far 
as  men  differ  about  the  moral  standard  now,  they  differ  rather  in 
their  views  of  the  history  of  morals,  how  the  present  type  came 
to  be  what  it  is,  whether  it  can  be  accounted  for  by  a  progressive 
natural  evolution,  or  whether  the  Christian  ideal  was  not  a 
revelation,  and  a  new  departure,  prepared  for,  indeed,  but  not 
the  product  of  previous  development.  As  we  take  the  Christian 
type,  so  Aristotle  took  the  Greek  type ;  but  he  did  not  concern 
himself  as  to  how  it  had  come  to  be  what  it  was,  or  why  it  was 
the  fullest  known  expression  of  reason,  ^^^e  claim  the  Christian 
standard  as  a  standard  for  man  as  man,  and  criticise  the  moral 
standard  of  the  Ethics  as  local  and  national,  and  therefore 
transient.  This  is  felt  directly  we  attempt  to  transfer  the  virtues 
of  the  Ethics  to   modern  life.     We  feel  the  /jLoroKwXia  of  Greek 


Notes  to  Lcctztre  L  383 

ethics,   as   Aristotle   felt   the  fiovoKOiXia  of  the  Spartan  type  of 
character." — Essays  Scientific  and  Philosophical,  pp.  154,  155. 

The  same  transformation  through  the  awakened  sense  of  the 
infinite  is  seen  in  the  domain  of  Art  itself.  As  Sculpture  with  its 
exactness  of  line  and  severe  proportions  is  the  representative 
art  of  the  Greeks,  so  Music,  which  is,  as  it  were,  the  attempt 
to  express  the  unutterable  in  feeling  and  aspiration,  is  the 
representative  art  of  modern  thought.  Cf.  Symonds,  ibid, 
chap.  XXV. 


NOTE  2.     See  p.  17. 
The  Consequence  of  divorcing  Duty  from  Immortality, 

The  inevitable  alternatives  resulting  from  such  a  divorce — 
viz.  that  Duty  either  (i)  becomes  a  sadness  and  an  oppression  ; 
or  (2)  is  gradually  emptied  of  its  essential  imperativeness — are 
well  illustrated  in  the  two  following  passages. 

(i)  "'It  is  conceivable,'  she  (George  Eliot)  says,  'that  in 
some  minds  the  deep  pathos  lying  in  the  thought  of  human 
mortality — that  we  are  here  for  a  little  while  and  then  vanish 
away,  that  this  earthly  life  is  all  that  is  given  to  our  loved  ones 
and  to  our  many  suffering  fellow-men — lies  nearer  the  fountains 
of  moral  emotion  than  the  conception  of  extended  existence.' 

"  It  was,  indeed,  above  all  things,  this  sadness  with  which  she 
contemplated  the  lot  of  dying  men  which  gave  to  her  convictions 
an  air  of  reality  far  more  impressive  than  the  rhetorical  satis- 
faction which  is  sometimes  expressed  at  the  prospect  of  individual 
annihilation.  George  EHot  recognised  the  terrible  probability 
that,  for  creatures  with  no  future  to  look  to,  advance  in  spiritu- 
ality may  oftenest  be  but  advance  in  pain ;  she  saw  the  sombre 
reasonableness  of  that  grim  plan  which  suggests  that  the  world's 
life-long  struggle  might  best  be  ended — not,  indeed,  by  individual 
desertions,  but  by  the  moving  off  of  the  whole  great  army  from 
the  field  of  its  unequal  war — by  the  simultaneous  suicide  of  all 
the  race  of  man.     But  since  this  could  not  be ;  since  that  race 


384  Notes  to  Lect7nx  I. 

was  a  united  army  only  in  metaphor — was,  in  truth,  a  never-ending 

host 

'  Whose  rear  lay  wrapt  in  night,  while  breaking  dawn 

Roused  the  broad  front,    and  called  the  battle  on,' 

she  held  that  it  befits  us  neither  to  praise  the  sum  of  things  nor 
to  rebel  in  vain,  but  to  take  care  only  that  our  brothers'  lot  may 
be  less  grievous  to  them  in  that  we  have  lived.  Even  so,  to 
borrow  a  simile  from  M.  Renan,  the  emperor  who  summed  up 
his  view  of  life  in  the  words  Nil  expedit,  gave  none  the  less  to  his 
legions  as  his  last  night's  watchword,  Labore?nusy — F.  W.  H. 
Myers,  Essays :  Modern,  pp.  267,  268. 

(2)  "  When  the  supernatural  does  not  come  in  to  overwhelm 
the  natural  and  turn  life  upside  down,  when  it  is  admitted  that 
religion  deals  in  the  first  instance  with  the  known  and  the  natural, 
then  we  may  well  begin  to  doubt  whether  the  known  and  the 
natural  can  suffice  for  human  life.  No  sooner  do  we  try  to  think 
so  than  pessimism  raises  its  head.  The  more  our  thoughts  widen 
and  deepen  as  the  Universe  grows  upon  us  and  we  become 
accustomed  to  boundless  space  and  time,  the  more  petrifying  is  the 
contrast  of  our  own  insignificance,  the  more  contemptible  become 
the  pettiness,  shortness,  fragility  of  the  individual  life.  A  moral 
paralysis  creeps  upon  us.  For  a  while  we  comfort  ourselves  with 
the  notion  of  self-sacrifice  ;  we  say.  What  matter  if  I  pass,  let  me 
think  of  others  !  But  the  other  has  become  contemptible  no  less 
than  the  self ;  all  human  griefs  alike  seem  little  worth  assuaging, 
human  happiness  too  paltry  at  the  best  to  be  worth  increasing. 
The  whole  moral  world  is  reduced  to  a  point ;  the  spiritual  city, 
'  the  goal  of  all  the  saints,'  dwindles  to  the  '  least  of  little  stars ' ; 
good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  become  infinitesimal,  ephemeral 
matters,  while  eternity  and  infinity  remain  attributes  of  that  only 
which  is  outside  the  realm  of  morality.  Life  becomes  more  in- 
tolerable the  more  we  know  and  discover,  so  long  as  everything 
widens  and  deepens  except  our  own  duration,  and  that  remains 
as  pitiful  as  ever.  The  affections  die  away  in  a  world  where 
everything  great  and  enduring  is  cold ;  they  die  of  their  own 
conscious  feebleness  and  bootlessness." — ^^^i^y,  Natural  Religion, 
pp.  251,  252. 


Notes  to  Lecture  I.  385 


NOTE  3.     See  p.  27. 
The  Pi'ayers  of  Christ. 

The  portion  of  the  Lecture  dealing  with  this  subject  is  sub- 
stantially a  reproduction  of  an  article  entitled,  "  Did  our  Lord 
unite  in  prayer  with  His  disciples  ? "  contributed  by  me  to  The 
Thinker  for  October  1893.  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  considering 
the  unbroken  silence  of  the  Gospels  regarding  any  occasion  on 
which  Jesus  took  part  in  common  prayer,  the  question  of  His 
abstention  has  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  argued  anywhere  in 
detail.  The  general  attitude  has  evidently  been  to  take  for 
granted  that  in  this  respect  He  was  "  like  unto  His  brethren." 

Dr.  Stalker,  in  his  Imago  Christie  states  with  emphasis  the 
same  view  as  Dr.  Bruce.  "  The  Twelve  were  a  kind  of  family  to 
Him,  and  He  assiduously  cultivated  family  worship"  (p.  133). 

Finding,  however,  that  Dr.  Dale  in  his  last  volume,  Christian 
Doctrine  (pp.  105,  106),  pronounced  with  equal  emphasis  for  the 
"  solitariness  "  of  Christ's  prayers,  I  took  the  liberty  of  sending 
him  my  article  and  asking  if  he  was  aware  of  any  book  in  which 
the  position  he  took  was  examined  and  maintained.  In  the 
reply  with  which  he  favoured  me,  he  said  that  he  was  unable  to 
recall  any  such  discussion,  but  that  he  had  himself  held  that 
position  as  long  as  he  could  remember,  and  was  surprised  to  find 
in  a  recently-published  volume  of  great  merit  a  different  opinion 
expressed.  That  theologians  of  equal  eminence  should  thus 
propound  opposite  views  on  a  phase  of  Christ's  conduct  surely 
not  unimportant,  without  feeling  called  upon  to  enter  into  an 
argument  in  vindication,  shows  how  very  little  the  subject  has 
been  directly  faced. 

Bishop  Chadwick  in  his  Donnellan  Lectures,  Christ  bearing 
Witness  to  Hijtiself,  declares  decisively  for  the  view^  advocated  in 
the  text.  "  Although  He  (Jesus)  says,  '  Watch  and  pray,'  although 
He  says,  '  Could  ye  not  watch  with  Me  one  hour  ?  '  He  says  not, 
Pray  with  Me.  Observe  how  St.  Paul  implores  his  Churches  to 
help  him  with  their  prayers,  and  mark  how  deep  the  chasm 
betw^een  the  two.  Why  then  does  it  never  occur  to  anyone  that 
25 


^S6  Notes  to  Lecture  I. 

Paul  thought  more  of  human  prayers  than  Jesus  thought,  except 
that  everyone,  however  unconsciously,  is  sensible  of  the  higher 
plane  of  existence  on  which  Jesus  moves?"  (p.  105).  It  would 
perhaps  be  truer  to  say  that  the  problem  presented  by  the 
contrast  between  the  prayers  of  Jesus  and  those  of  Paul,  instead 
of  being  solved  in  this  w^ay,  has,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  not  been 
realised  as  existing. 

For  a  fuller  discussion,  see  Appendix,  p.  472. 


NOTE  4.     See  p.  30. 
The  ^''Morbidity''  of  Self-examination. 

Mr.  R.  L.  Stevenson  {Across  the  Plains,  303,  305)  says,  "  The 
idealism  of  serious  people  in  this  age  of  ours  is  of  a  noble  charac- 
ter. It  never  seems  to  them  that  they  have  served  enough ;  they 
have  a  fine  impatience  of  their  virtues.  ...  If  we  require  so 
much  of  ourselves,  shall  we  not  require  much  of  others  ?  If  we 
do  not  genially  judge  our  own  deficiencies,  is  it  not  to  be  feared 
that  we  shall  be  even  stern  to  the  trespasses  of  others?  And  he 
who  (looking  back  upon  his  own  life)  can  see  no  more  than  that 
he  has  been  unconscionably  long  a-dying,  will  he  not  be  tempted 
to  think  his  neighbour  unconscionably  long  of  getting  hanged  ? 
It  is  probable  that  nearly  all  who  think  of  conduct  at  all,  think  of 
it  too  much  ;  it  is  certain  that  we  all  think  too  much  of  sin.  We 
are  not  damned  for  doing  wrong,  but  for  not  doing  right.  Christ 
would  never  hear  of  negative  morality ;  tJioii  shalt  was  ever  His 
word  with  which  He  superseded  thou  shalt  not^ 

The  truth  contained  in  these  words  is  apt  to  obscure  the 
fallacy  that  underlies  them.  They  are  a  valiant  protest  against 
the  morbidness  of  mere  introspection.  The  defects  of  our 
character  are  certainly  not  to  be  overcome  by  brooding  over 
them,  but  by  turning  to  the  immediate  duties  that  lie  before 
us,  and  fixing  our  thoughts  on  the  ideals  of  excellence  for  which 
our  nature  craves,  till  they  animate  us  with  passion  and  hope. 
It  is  through  the  positiveness  of  love  and  achievement  that  we 
are  saved  from  the  negation  of  failure.     But,  on  the  other  hand. 


Notes  to  Lectzire  I.  387 

it  is  the  very  keenness  of  our  sense  ot"  shortcoming  that  drives 
us  out  of  ourselves  for  deliverance.  Disregard  of  moral  faults, 
as  if  they  were  of  no  moment  or  simply  steps  in  an  onward 
movement,  is  to  a  genuine  soul  impossible,  and  even  if  pos- 
sible, ruinous  to  ethical  advance.  It  is  impossible,  because  it 
cannot  so  shut  its  eyes  to  the  facts  of  its  own  life  and  its 
inherent  responsibility.  The  plain  recognition  of  its  sin  as 
bound  up  with  its  personality  is  involved  in  fidelity  to  its  true 
self:  and  without  such  fidelity  virtue  is  but  a  name.  And, 
secondly,  the  constant  realisation  of  our  defects  is  a  necessary 
factor  in  the  process  whereby  we  rise  above  them.  It  is  more 
than  the  diagnosis  that  precedes  the  cure — it  is  the  means  by 
which  the  beauty  and  joy  of  goodness  are  afresh  revealed  to  us 
through  the  bitter  experience  of  its  loss,  and  preserves  in  us 
that  spirit  of  humility  and  self-mistrust  which  is  receptive  of  the 
divine.  Even  when  the  faith  in  a  personal  Lord  who  fulfils 
Himself  in  us  is  lost,  the  imperative  obligation  of  this  inner 
veracity  remains  for  all  strenuous  spirits.  They  still  keep  judg- 
ing themselves  and  following  on  to  know  and  gain  the  highest ; 
though  in  their  case  introspection,  just  because  they  do  not  lose 
themselves  in  Another,  tends  to  frequent  depression  and  weari- 
ness. But  the  Christian  is  relieved  from  this  depression,  because 
for  him  the  subjective  is  balanced  by  the  objective  :  they  are 
complementary,  and  form  two  sides  of  the  same  spiritual  ex- 
perience. The  gradual  disclosure  of  his  subjective  need  is  met 
by  the  fuller  revelation  of  a  redeeming  and  indwelling  Power. 
Self-examination,  instead  of  paralysing  his  energy,  re-quickens  it, 
by  increasing  his  receptivity  and  surrender  to  the  Spirit  of  the 
conquering  One. 

It  is  a  strange  misconception  to  fancy,  as  Mr.  Stevenson 
does,  that  unless  we  are  genial  in  judging  our  own  deficiencies, 
we  shall  be  tempted  to  apply  a  stern  measure  to  others.  There 
is  no  parallel  in  the  two  cases  :  and  the  best  souls  feel  that 
there  is  none.  We  cannot  fully  estimate,  on  the  side  of  omis- 
sion, our  own  blameworthiness  :  but  wo  know  it  as  we  do  not 
know  the  blameworthiness  of  our  neighbours.  "  Gentle  towards 
others  :    severe  towards  oneself "  is   the  instinct  of  all  ethical 


T^SS  Notes  to  Lecttire  I. 

sincerity.  The  self-judgment  which  issues  in  censoriousness  is 
a  caricature  of  the  reality,  which  lives  only  in  an  atmosphere  of 
humility  and  love. 


NOTE  5.     See  p.  38. 

Christ  a7id  Evolution. 

Professor  Le  Conte  {Evolution  ;  its  Nature^  its  Evidences.,  and 
its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought,  2nd  ed.,  pp.  360-364)  holds 
that,  "  as  organic  evolution  reached  its  goal  and  completion  in 
jnan,  so  human  evolution  must  reach  its  goal  and  completion 
in  the  ideal  man — i.e.  the  Christ "  ;  and  he  strives  to  show  that 
the  appearance  of  the  Christ  as  the  goal  and  ideal  during  the 
process  of  the  evolution,  and  not  at  its  close,  constitutes  no 
objection  to  this  view.  For,  "  in  addition  to  all  the  factors 
of  organic  evolution,  in  human  progress  there  is  a  new  and 
higher  factor  added,  which  immediately  takes  precedence  of  all 
others.  This  factor  is  the  conscious  voliuitary  co-operatio?i  of  the 
human  spirit  in  the  work  of  its  owfi  evolution.  The  method  of 
this  new  factor  consists  essentially  in  the  formation,  and 
especially  in  the  vohmta?'y  piirsuit,  of  ideals.  In  organic  evolu- 
tion species  are  transformed  by  the  enviro7inient.  In  human 
evolution  character  is  transformed  by  its  own  ideal.  Organic 
evolution  is  by  necessary  law — human  evolution  is  by  voluntary 
effort,  i.e.  by  free  law.  Organic  evolution  is  pushed  onward 
and  upward  from  behind  and  below.  Human  evolution  is 
drawn  upward  and  forward  from  above  and  in  front  by  the 
attractive  force  of  ideals.  Thus  the  ideal  of  organic  evolution 
cannot  appear  until  the  end ;  while  the  attractive  ideals  of 
human  evolution  must  come — whether  only  in  the  imagination 
or  realised  in  the  flesh — but  must  come  somehow  i?i  the  course. 
The  most  powerfully  attractive  ideal  ever  presented  to  the 
human  mind,  and  therefore  the  most  potent  agent  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  human  character,  is  the  Christ.  This  ideal  must  come 
— whether  in  the  imagination  or  in  the  flesh,  I  say  not,  but — 
must  come  somehow  in  the  course  and  not  at  the  end.     At  the 


Notes  to  Lecture  I.  389 

end  the  whole  human  race,  drawn  upward  by  this  ideal,  must 
reach  the  fulness  of  the  stature  of  the  Christ." 

The  hopelessly  ineffective  character  of  this  solution  is 
manifest  from  Professor  Le  Conte's  inability  to  pronounce 
whether  his  human  ideal  is  to  be  conceived  as  actual  or  only 
imaginative :  for  it  makes  the  greatest  of  all  differences  whether 
we  regard  it  as  the  one  or  the  other,  (i)  A  Christ  who  is  merely 
the  imaginative  ideal  of  human  excellence,  is  not  the  goal,  but 
only  the  conception  of  the  goal.  The  two,  as  we  shall  see,  are 
necessarily  related  :  but  to  treat  them  as  identical  in  value  is  to 
confuse  the  problem.  (2)  Professor  Le  Conte  does  nothing  to 
establish  his  assertion  that  even  the  absolute  imaginative  ideal 
must  come  in  the  course  of  the  development.  Experience 
teaches  just  the  reverse,  viz.  that  the  progress  of  humanity  is 
secured  by  the  gradtial  and  successive  supersession  of  lower  by 
higher  and  fuller  conceptions  of  excellence.  Nor  is  this  law 
affected  by  the  fact  that  the  forward  movement  is  largely  due  to 
the  voluntary  and  self-determining  action  of  man's  spirit.  That 
the  race  should  at  an  early  or  intermediate  period  in  its  history 
strike  out  the  final  ideal  of  duty;  that  subsequent  generations 
should  make  no  further  positive  contributions,  and  should  be 
occupied  simply  in  attempting  to  grasp  what  has  already  been 
proclaimed,  is  contrary  to  all  probability  on  any  evolutionary 
theory.  (3)  This  conclusion  is  further  confirmed,  when  we  con- 
sider that  the  ideal  in  question  is  2ifi?ial  one.  (See  Iverach,  Evolti- 
tion  and  Christianity^  pp.  199,  200.)  For  character  is  the  condition 
of  moral  insight.  The  pure  in  heart  see  God.  Increasing  purity 
alone  brings  increased  vision ;  but  the  increase  is  merely  relative. 
Absolute  insight  implies  absolute  inner  harmony  of  nature.  If 
Christ  then  saw  and  declared  the  final  and  comprehensive  ideal 
of  man's  relation  to  God  and  to  his  fellows,  it  was  because  this 
ideal  lived  within  Him  as  a  practical  experience.  Hence  the 
absolute  ideal  of  imagination,  though  distinct  in  thought  from 
the  realisation  of  it  in  a  historic  personality,  is  essentially  in- 
separable from  it,  and  grows  out  of  it. 

If,  again.  Professor  Le  Conte  acknowledges  that  "  the  Christ " 
has  come  in  the  flesh,  what  proof  can  he  give  that  in  the  course 


390  Notes  to  Lecture  /. 

of  its  development  humanity  must  embody  its  ideal  in  a  particular 
personality?  To  say  that  human  character  is  transformed,  not 
chiefly  by  its  environment,  but  by  the  ideals  of  its  own  creating, 
does  not  help  us  one  whit  to  understand  how,  amid  the  myriads 
of  free  spirits  constituting  the  race,  One  alone  was  able  to  exer- 
cise His  freedom  so  as  to  retain  an  unbroken  loyalty  to  good. 
What  factors  existed  in  Him  rendering  the  mysterious  exception 
possible  ? 

The  truth  is  that  Professor  Le  Conte  finds  that  the  ideal  of 
humanity  has  arisen  in  connection  with  the  historic  Jesus ;  and 
because  it  has  arisen  in  the  course  of  the  evolution,  he  says  it 
could  not  have  been  otherwise ;  it  must  have  appeared.  No 
doubt  there  existed  such  a  necessity,  or  it  would  have  found  no 
place  in  God's  revelation  of  Himself  to  men.  But  he  begs  the 
question  when  he  implies  that  the  conditions  of  the  necessity 
existed  within  the  normal  experience  of  humanity  as  it  is,  and 
the  forces  in  operation  there.  The  necessity  lay  not  there,  but 
further  back,  in  the  spiritual  world  of  which  man's  life  is  but  a 
part.  Professor  Le  Conte  might  have  been  led  to  recognise  this, 
had  he  addressed  himself  to  the  historic  problem  involved.  It 
is  in  vain  to  talk  of  the  Christ  as  the  "ideal  man,"  unless  we  face 
the  question  of  the  actual  origin  of  the  conception  in  the  life  of 
Jesus.  When  we  do  this,  it  is  quite  obvious  that  there  are  two 
respects  in  which  the  term  "  ideal  man "  fails  to  bring  out  the 
full  truth.  (i)  Just  because  Jesus  starts  where  no  one  else 
does,  from  the  standpoint  of  an  inner  unity  with  God,  He  pos- 
sesses a  type  of  consciousness  for  ever  impossible  even  to 
redeemed  humanity.  The  attainment  by  men  of  the  measure 
of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ  will  not  obliterate  the  dis- 
tinction. (2)  Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  fact  that  Christ  asserts 
for  Himself  an  incommunicable  centrality  and  sovereignty  relative 
to  mankind,  and  thus  manifests  qualities  not  belonging  to  the 
ideal  character  which  He  sets  before  us,  and  in  our  case  incom- 
patible with  it  (Lect.  H.).  In  a  word,  He  is  not  only  the  Ideal 
of  Humanity,  but  the  Lord  of  it ;  and  this  double  characteristic 
is  possible  only  to  One  who,  as  regards  the  race,  is  both  within 
it  and  above  it. 


Notes  to  Lectttre  II,  391 


LECTURE    II. 

NOTE  6.     See  p.  58. 
Dean  Stanley  on  Chrisfs  Self -suppression, 

"  Other  teachers,  other  founders  of  religions,  have  cared  that 
their  names  should  be  honoured  and  remembered.  He  cared 
not  for  this^  if  only  Himself,  His  spirit.  His  works,  survived ;  if 
to  the  poor,  the  suffering,  the  good  everywhere,  were  paid  the 
tenderness,  the  honour  due  to  Him.  In  their  happiness  He  is 
blessed,  in  their  honour  He  is  honoured,  in  their  reception  He 
is  received.  It  is  the  last  triumph  of  divine  unselfishness,  and 
it  is  its  last  and  greatest  reward." — Christian  Institutions^  p.  48. 

Nothing,  surely,  could  well  be  less  adequate  than  this,  as  a 
description  of  the  distinctive  attitude  of  Christ ;  and  it  is  the 
more  remarkable  that  the  passage  occurs  as  a  comment  on  the 
significance  of  the  Last  Supper.  Undoubtedly  Christ's  one  aim 
was  the  quickening  in  men  of  His  own  spirit  of  self-sacrifice ; 
and  every  manifestation  of  it,  whether  springing  from  a  conscious 
thought  of  Him  or  not,  was  regarded  by  Him  as  a  mark  of  that 
divine  kingdom  of  which  He  was  the  head.  (See  Lecture  IX.) 
But  to  say  that  He  was  indifferent  to  their  recognition  of  Him 
personally,  is  precisely  the  opposite  of  the  fact.  The  complete 
self-abnegation,  the  all-inclusive  love,  which  constituted  the 
blessedness  of  human  sonship  and  brotherhood,  was  realised  in 
Him,  and  could  only  be  realised  in  others  through  Him,  through 
a  knowledge  of  what  He  had  shown  Himself  to  be.  If  they 
ceased  consciously  to  honour  Him  with  their  homage,  there  was 
no  possibility  of  their  attaining  "  His  Spirit "  in  its  fulness.  He 
was  not  one  among  many  means  by  which  they  could  reach  the 
end  :  He  was  the  Way.  And  for  this  reason  He  so  acted  that, 
as  Professor  See«ey  says,  "the  Law  and  Law-Giver  together" 
were  enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  His  disciples  "for  inseparable 
veneration  "  {IZcce  Homo,  p.  49). 


392  Notes  to  Lecture  II. 

NOTE  7.     See  p.  80. 
The  AntJiorsJiip  of  the  Fotirth  Gospel. 

"The  extreme  views  of  the  Tiibingcn  school  as  to  the  late 
origin  of  the  Gospel  are  now  virtually  antiquated,  though  still 
finding  representatives  in  such  writers  as  Pfleiderer  and  Martineau. 
By  various  lines  of  evidence  the  date  has  been  steadily  pushed 
back  to  a  time  which  brings  apostolic  authorship  within  the 
range  of  possibility.  The  alternatives  now  may  be  said  to  lie 
between  the  Apostle  John  and  a  disciple  of  the  apostle,  belonging 
to  the  Ephesian  school,  acquainted  with  the  traditions  of  his 
teaching  and  under  his  inspiring  influence.  The  difference 
between  these  two  hypotheses  in  the  view  of  some  is  still  serious, 
while  to  others  it  appears  trivial ;  but  it  is  beyond  all  question 
that  the  theory  of  Johannine  inspiration,  as  distinct  from  author- 
ship, advocated  by  such  a  weighty  writer  as  Weizsacker,  can  be 
regarded  with  equanimity  by  even  the  most  conservative,  in 
comparison  with  a  theory  which  relegates  the  Gospel  to  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  remote  from  apostolic  influence, 
and  regards  it  as  the  product  of  new  religious  tendencies,  and  the 
child  of  an  alien  world." — Bruce,  Apologetics,  pp.  470,  471. 

The  reasons  which  cumulatively  make  the  Johannine  author 
ship  highly  probable,  are  stated  with  more  or  less  fulness  by 
Luthardt,  Godet,  and  Westcott  in  the  Introductions  to  their 
Commentaries  on  the  Fourth  Gospel ;  by  Sanday,  Authorship 
and  Historical  Character  of  the  Foitrth  Gospel  (cf  also  his  articles 
in  the  Expositor  for  1891-92) ;  Salmon,  Litrod.  to  N.T. ;  Light- 
foot,  op.  cit.  \  and  Watkins,  Bampto?i  Lectures  for  1890. 


NOTE  8.     See  p.  80. 

Harnack  on  the  Prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

"  The  prologue  of  the  Gospel  is  not  the  key  to  its  compre- 
hension. It  begins  with  a  well-known  great  object,  the  Logos, 
re-adopts  and  transforms  it — implicitly  opposing  false  Christo- 


Notes  to  Lecttire  II.  ';93 

logics — in  order  to  substitute  for  it  Jesus  Christ,  the  ix.ovoy^vr\% 
0eos,  or  in  order  to  unveil  it  as  this  Jesus  Christ.  The  idea  of 
the  Logos  is  allowed  to  fall  from  the  moment  that  this  takes 
place.  The  author  continues  to  narrate  of  Jesus  only  with  the 
view  of  establishing  the  belief  that  He  is  the  Messiah,  the  Son 
of  God.  This  faith  has  for  its  main  article  the  recognition  that 
Jesus  is  descended  from  God  and  from  heaven  \  but  the  author 
is  far  from  endeavouring  to  work  out  this  recognition  from 
cosmological,  philosophical  considerations.  According  to  the 
Evangelist,  Jesus  proves  Himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  the  Son  of 
God,  in  virtue  of  His  self-testimony,  and  because  He  has  brought 
a  full  knowledge  of  God  and  of  life — purely  supernatural  divine 
blessings." — History  of  Dogma,  vol.  i.  p.  97  n. 

But  it  is  just  because  the  prologue  is  so  utterly  different 
from  the  Gospel  itself,  that  it  is  the  key  to  it.  In  the  Gospel 
the  author  keeps  close  to  the  historical  point  of  view,  and  sets 
forth  the  facts  which  attested  Jesus  as  the  well-beloved  Son. 
Before  proceeding,  however,  to  the  historical  account,  he  tells 
us  what  he  regards  as  involved  in  this  human  revelation  of  a 
transcendent  Sonship.  The  Word  becaine  flesh.  "  This  great 
sentence,"  as  Dr.  Denney  says  in  his  Studies  in  Theology,  p.  61, 
"  not  only  puts  Christ  in  an  essential  relation  to  God,  it  puts 
Him  in  essential  relation  to  all  through  which  God  is  revealed, 
— to  creation,  to  human  reason,  to  prophecy  and  providence  in 
Israel."  John  prefaces  the  Gospel  with  it  :  but  he  does  not 
interweave  the  cosmical  conception  of  Christ  with  his  narrative 
of  Christ's  historic  appearance,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the 
latter  is  the  problem  to  be  solved  and  the  former  is  the  solution 
of  it, 


NOTE  9.     See  p.  84. 

TJie  Baptist's  Designation  of  Jesus  as  the  ''Lamb  of  God!' 

Some  have  supposed  that  the  words  of  the  Baptist,  as  re- 
corded in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world  "  (i.  29),  are,  to  say  the  least. 


394  Notes  to  Lecture  II. 

coloured  by  the  Evangelist's  own  experience.  How,  they  ask, 
arc  we  to  exjilain  so  distinct  an  allusion  at  that  date  to  Christ's 
sacrifice,  considering  the  views  which  the  Baptist  afterwards 
cherished  of  the  Messiahship  as  an  external  triumph  (Matt.  xi. 
2-6;  Luke  vii.  18-23)?  Whatever  difficulty  exists  is  not  to  be 
removed  by  the  "  time-honoured  exegetical  tradition  that  John 
sent  the  messengers  to  resolve,  not  his  own  doubts,  but  theirs 
(see  refs.  in  Meyer,  MatL,  I.e.).  Nor  is  it  possible  to  eliminate 
the  sacrificial  idea  from  John's  early  designation  of  Jesus,  by 
supposing  that  he  merely  termed  Him  the  "  Lamb  of  God " 
(cf  ver.  36)  as  a  type  of  innocence  and  meekness,  and  that  the 
subsequent  words  were  added  by  the  Fourth  Evangelist.  Even 
if  the  phrase  "  Lamb  of  God  "  were  alone  used,  it  cannot  but 
have  carried  in  the  Baptist's  own  mind  a  reference  to  the  "  lamb 
led  to  the  slaughter"  in  Isaiah  liii.,  or  to  the  Paschal  lamb 
whose  blood  shielded  from  the  destroying  angel  (Godet,  Comiii. 
oil  St.  John^  in  toe). 

If  the  later  doubts  in  the  Machaerus  prison  are  to  be  regarded 
as  casting  suspicion  on  these  w^ords,  they  practically  discredit 
the  whole  account  as  given,  not  only  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but 
in  the  Synoptics,  of  John's  testimony  to  Jesus,  which  implies  a 
special  illumination  granted  to  him  for  his  unique  function  as 
Forerunner.  Unless  to  those  who  are  possessed  by  a  naturalistic 
bias,  there  is  nothing  inconceivable  in  the  idea  that  in  his  fulfil- 
ment of  this  function  he  should  have  attained  at  that  supreme 
point  the  prophetic  perception  that  the  suffering  and  death  of 
the  Messiah  were  the  necessary  means  of  His  people's  deliver- 
ance. Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it  at  all  strange,  but  rather 
quite  in  accordance  with  experience,  that  this  insight  might 
vanish  or  grow  dim,  when  the  demands  of  his  mission  were  over, 
and  especially  when  his  spirit  was  thrown  back  upon  itself  in  the 
depression  of  a  lonely  imprisonment.  Such  high  visions  are  not 
permanent  endowments,  or  constant  quantities.  When  they  have 
served  their  hour,  they  pass. 


Notes  to  Lecture  II.  39  q 

NOTE  10.     See  p.  85. 
TJie  Fatherhood  of  God  in  the  Synoptics  and  in  St.  John. 

When  Jesus,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  designates  God 
as  "your  Father,"  both  Matthew  (v.  i,  2)  and  Luke  (vi.  20) 
mention  that  He  was  addressing  "  His  disciples."  It  has  there- 
fore been  maintained  by  some  that  He  does  not  regard  God  as 
the  Father  of  all  men,  but  only  of  such  as  have  already  welcomed 
the  filial  spirit.  But  the  word  disciples  includes  all  who  for  a 
longer  or  shorter  time  had  attached  themselves  to  Him  as 
hearers.  (See  Meyer  and  Alford,  in  he).  Many  who  at  the 
earlier  stages  of  His  ministry  were  drawn  into  the  train  of  His 
followers,  afterwards  went  back  and  walked  no  more  with  Him 
(John  vi.  66).  Consequently  we  cannot  infer  from  this  phrase 
that  all  here  addressed  had  in  them  even  the  beginnings  of  that 
spiritual  experience  which  makes  men  in  the  full  sense  the  sons 
of  God. 

Moreover,  though  the  '  Sermon '  was  primarily  spoken  to 
disciples,  using  the  word  in  its  wider  meaning,  yet  we  are  distinctly 
told  that  it  was  addressed  also  to  'the  multitudes'  (Matt.  vii.  28  • 
Luke  vii.  i)  'who  pressed  forward  to  hear.'  "He  spoke  to  all 
the  people,"  says  Godet  {Comm.  on  Luke,  in  loc),  "  but  regarding 
them  as  the  representatives  of  the  new  order  of  things  which  He 
was  about  to  institute.  In  Matthew,  aurovs,  ver.  2  (He  tau^-ht 
the??i),  comprises  doth  the  people  and  the  disciples,  ver.  i."  The 
attempt  to  show  that  on  this  or  any  other  occasion  when  Jesus 
speaks  of  '  your  Father,'  He  confines  the  reference  to  one  class 
possessed  of  a  certain  spiritual  quality,  utterly  breaks  down. 
Quite  naturally  His  addresses  are  described  as  delivered  to  "  His 
disciples,"  because  they  stood  nearest  to  Him  at  the  time,  and 
because  His  instructions  were  spoken  specially  to  those  who  had 
acquired  some  fitness  to  receive  them.  But  they  were  intended 
for  all ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  joy  and  astonishment 
of  the  multitudes  at  His  words  sprang  from  the  new  truth  He 
declared  of  God's  fatherly  relation  to  them  as  individuals. 

The    same   truth   is    involved   in    His    conduct  towards  the 
outcast  and  unworthy,  as  that  of  One  searching  for  lost  treasure. 


396  Notes  to  Lecture  II. 

The  three  paiables  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Luke  are  at  once  a 
vindication  of  His  own  course  of  action,  and  a  revelation  of  the 
Father  to  men.  When  He  sought  the  wandering  or  outcast,  it 
was  not  to  raise  them  into  a  state  in  which  God  cotitd  love  them ; 
it  was  the  manifestation  of  the  love  of  the  Father  who  had  sent 
Him,  and  whose  love  devised  means  whereby  His  banished  ones 
might  be  brought  back.  It  is  the  recognition  by  the  disobedient 
of  God's  fatherly  tenderness  towards  them  that  awakes  in  them 
the  repentant  and  filial  spirit.  Wendt  puts  the  Synoptic  view  in 
one  epigrammatic  phrase  :  "  God  does  not  become  the  Father,  but 
is  the  Heavenly  Father  even  of  those  who  becojne  His  sons  " 
[Teaching  of  Jesus,  vol.  i.  p.  193). 

The  Johannine  teaching  has  unquestionably  a  different  tone. 
It  is  not  that  it  is  restrictive  in  its  view  of  God's  redeeming  love. 
On  this  point  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  pronouncedly  universalist 
(e.g.  The  Prologue,  iii.  16,  etc.).  But  as  regards  the  Fatherhood, 
its  representation  does  not  strike  the  same  note  as  the  Synoptics. 
It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  a  deep  significance  attaches  to  the 
fact  that  with  one  exception  (and  that  after  His  resurrection) 
Jesus  never  employs  the  Synoptic  phrase  '  your  Father.'  1  On 
the  other  hand,  while  He  frequently  speaks  of  God  as  'the 
Father,'  in  a  large  proportion  of  instances  He  expressly  correlates 
the  term  with  the  allusion  to  Himself  as  the  Son  (v.  19-27, 
and  passim).  It  contains  within  it  in  such  cases  the  same 
meaning  as  the  more  specific  term  '  My  Father,'  which  also 
frequently  occurs  in  John ;  and  indicates  a  Fatherhood  of  God 
to  men  founded  on  the  knowledge  and  acceptance  of  Himself  as 
the  Son.  As  this  correlation  of  Father  and  Son  is  so  character- 
istic of  the  Gospel,  analogy  would  suggest  that  in  those  passages 
where  it  is  not  stated  it  may  be  implied  (cf.  iv.  21-26),  especially 
in  the  total  absence  of  the  distinctive  Synoptic  expression. 

It  is  true  that  when  we  think  out  what  is  involved  in  the 
Johannine  idea  of  the  full  sonship  which  belongs  to  the  believer, 
we  see  that  it  has  for  its  presupposition  the  Synoptic  conception 

^  III  the  one  exceptional  instance  (xx.  17)  it  occurs  in  a  connection — 'My 
Father  and  your  Father  ' — which  brings  out  emphatically  the  central  thought 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 


Notes  to  Lectu7x  III.  397 

of  God's  fatherly  attitude  towards  him  previous  to  his  faith,  and 
in  order  to  his  attaining  it ;  that,  in  short,  such  a  view  of  the 
universality  and  intensity  of  God's  love  to  the  world  as  is  given 
in  John  iii.  16,  implies  what  the  Synoptics  teach.  Therefore  the 
contrast  which  the  Fourth  Gospel  presents  is  not  in  the  way  of 
contradiction,  but  of  supplement.  Yet  the  contrast  is  great, 
alike  in  what  it  omits  and  what  it  includes. 


LECTURE    III. 

NOTE  11.     Seep.  97. 

The  Attestation  of  Sons  hip  at  the  Baptism  and  the 
Transfiguration. 

Matthew  (iii.  17)  represents  the  voice  from  heaven  as 
addressed  to  the  Baptist,  "  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I 
am  well  pleased";  while  in  Mark's  account  (i.  11)  the  words  are 
spoken  to  Jesus  Himself,  "  Thou  art  My  beloved  Son ;  in  Thee 
I  am  well  pleased."  Much  needless  controversy  has  taken  place 
as  to  which  is  the  original  version.  The  dove  and  the  voice, 
even  if  they  were  sensuously  visible  and  audible,  were  only  the 
outward  signs  of  an  invisible  grace,  of  a  spiritual  assurance  borne 
in  upon  the  soul  regarding  the  call  of  Jesus  to  His  Messianic 
mission.  The  assurance  naturally  expressed  itself  in  forms  drawn 
from  prophetic  utterances  (see  Weiss,  Life  of  Christ,  vol.  i.  pp. 
324,  325).  But  to  argue  that  because  Mark  records  the  w^ords 
at  the  Baptism  as  a  direct  personal  address,  while  he  gives  the 
similar  words  at  the  Transfiguration  (ix.  7)  in  an  indirect  form, 
he  therefore  means  that  the  Baptism  was  the  point  where  the 
Messianic  conviction  first  awoke  in  Jesus,  and  the  Transfigura- 
tion only  the  occasion  of  its  confirmation  or  its  proclamation  to 
others,  is,  even  apart  from  the  fact  that  Matthew  uses  the  same 
phrase  in  the  two  cases  (iii.  17,  xvii.  5),  the  very  extravagance  of 
literalistic  exegesis.  The  psychological  reasons  against  this  view 
are,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  lecture,  overwhelming.     An  expres- 


398  Notes  to  Lect7tre  III. 

sion  which  belongs  to  the  realm  of  spiritual  intuition  is  not  to  be 
interpreted  like  a  clause  in  a  legal  document. 


NOTE  12.     See  p.  106. 
The  true  Glory  of  Christ's  earthly  Life. 

La  distance  infinie  des  corps  aux  esprits  figure  la  distance 
infiniment,  plus  infinie  des  esprits  a  la  charite,  car  elle  est  sur- 
naturelle. 

Tout  I'eclat  des  grandeurs  n'a  point  de  lustre  pour  les  gens 
qui  sont  dans  les  recherches  de  I'esprit.  La  grandeur  des  gens 
d'esprit  est  invisible  aux  riches,  aux  rois,  aux  capitaines,  a  tous 
ces  grands  de  chair.  La  grandeur  de  la  sagesse,  qui  n'est  nulle 
part  sinon  en  Dieu,  est  invisible  aux  charnels  et  aux  gens  d'esprit. 
Ce  sont  trois  ordres  differents  en  genres.  .  .  . 

Jesus-Christ,  sans  bien  et  sans  aucune  production  au  dehors 
de  science,  est  dans  son  ordre  de  saintete.  //  ;/'«  point  donne 
dHnventio7i,  il  n'a  point  regne  :  mais  il  a  ete  humble,  patient, 
saint,  saint,  saint  a  Dieu,  terrible  aux  demons,  sans  aucun  peche. 
O  qu'il  est  venu  en  grande  pompe  et  en  une  prodigieuse  magnifi- 
cence aux  yeux  du  coeur  et  qui  voient  la  sagesse ! 

II  eut  ete  inutile  a  Archimede  de  faire  le  prince  dans  ses 
livres  de  geometric,  quoiqu'il  le  fut.  II  eut  ete  inutile  a  Notre- 
Seigneur  Jesus-Christ,  pour  dclater  dans  son  regne  de  saintete,  de 
venir  en  roi :  7nais  il  est  bien  venu  avec  P eclat  de  son  ordre. 

Pascal,  FenseeSj  ed.  Gamier,  pp.  122,  123. 


NOTE  13.     See  p.  106. 

The  Limitations  of  our  Lord's  Knowledge. 

( I )  As  regards  the  scientific  knowledge  of  nature  or  history. 
"1  repeat,  then,"  says  Bishop  Moorhouse,  "and  I  repeat  it 
emphatically,  the  (juestion  of  the  age  or  the  authorship  of  any 
passage  in  the  Old  Testament  was  never  either  started  by  our 


Notes  to  Lectttre  III.  399 

Lord  Himself  or  raised  by  His  opponents.  .  .  .  When,  however, 
we  affirm  our  Lord's  human  ignorance  of  natural  science,  histor- 
ical criticism,  and  the  like,  we  are  not  to  be  understood  as  denying 
the  possibility  of  the  miraculous  communication  of  such  know- 
ledge ;  but  only  the  affirmation  so  constantly  made,  that  the 
union  of  our  Lord's  humanity  with  His  divinity  necessarily 
implies  the  possession  of  such  knowledge.  He  might  be  without 
it.  We  know  that  in  one  case  He  was  without  it.  He  never 
claimed  to  possess  it,  nor  did  His  mission  require  that  He  should 
possess  it"  {The  Teaching  of  Christ,  pp.  42-44).  It  is  needless 
to  raise  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  Christ's  possessing 
scientific  knowledge :  the  one  point  that  really  concerns  us  is, 
whether  we  have  any  grounds  for  believing  that  He  actually 
possessed  it.  And  when  we  see,  on  the  one  hand,  that  He  not 
only  gives  no  indication  of  it  in  His  utterances,  but  that  the 
whole  of  His  self-revelation  suggests  the  opposite ;  and  when,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  recognise  that  essentially  His  specific  work  for 
humanity  belongs  to  a  different  order, — then  the  conclusion,  if  we 
are  to  be  guided  by  the  evidence  and  not  by  an  arbitrary  hypo- 
thesis, is  not  doubtful. 

(2)  As  regards  the  knowledge  of  ordinary  facts  and  events. 
This  raises  a  more  difficult  problem,  because  the  facts  of  the 
Gospels  do  not  all  point  one  way.  There  are  two  or  three  occa- 
sions where  Christ's  acquaintance  with  incidents  seems  to  imply 
supernatural  illumination  (Matt.  xvii.  27;  Mark  xiv.  13-16; 
John  iv.  18).  A  very  good  example  of  the  diverse  views  on  this 
subject  occurs  in  connection  with  the  parable  of  the  feeding  of 
the  Five  Thousand.  Canon  Gore  {Dissertations,  p.  82)  holds 
that  the  question  addressed  to  Philip,  "Whence  are  we  to  buy 
bread  that  these  may  eat  ?  "  (John  vi.  5),  was  not  put  by  Christ 
for  the  sake  of  information ;  for  the  Evangelist  adds,  "  This  He 
said  to  prove  him,  for  He  Himself  knew  what  He  would  do." 
Dr.  Dale  {Christiati  Doctrine,  pp.  6r,  62)  pronounces  strongly  for 
the  other  view.  "  Yes — our  Lord  knew  what  He  Himself  intejided 
to  do :  but  to  suppose  that  He  knew  before  He  was  told  how 
much  bread  the  disciples  had,  or  that  there  was  a  lad  with  them 
who  had  '  five  barley  loaves  and  two  fishes,'  is  to  destroy  the 


400  Notes  to  Lecture  III. 

reality  of  the  narratives,  and  even  to  suggest  that  the  story  of  our 
Lord  may  be  full  of  illusions."  But  instances  of  this  description, 
which  either  imply  supernatural  illumination  or  at  least  admit 
of  such  an  interpretation,  are  few  compared  with  those  where 
Christ's  questions  and  His  exclamations  of  surprise  distinctly  and 
naturally  convey  the  impression  of  limited  knowledge.  To  say 
that  the  surprise  was  feigned,  or  that  His  questions  did  not 
signify  ignorance  on  His  part,  but  were  merely  the  means  He 
employed  to  draw  forth  the  confidence  of  others  or  to  relieve  the 
tension  of  minds  distracted  by  sorrow,  as  in  the  case  of  the  father 
of  the  demoniac  or  the  mourners  at  Bethany,  is  to  run  the  risk  of 
casting  suspicion  on  the  veraciousness  of  Christ's  entire  manifes- 
tation of  Himself.  It  is  but  another  form  of  the  biassed  Patristic 
exegesis  of  His  reference  to  the  End. 

(3)  It  is  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sphere  alone  that  no 
limits  can  be  discovered  in  the  range  or  accuracy  of  Christ's 
knowledge.  The  question  has  been  raised  whether  we  are  to 
regard  His  intuitive  perception  of  character  as  the  proof  of  a 
nature  truly  divine,  or  only  as  the  intensification  of  the  prophetic 
quality  of  insight.  Now,  while  there  is  a  true  analogy  between 
the  insight  of  our  Lord  and  that  of  the  prophets,  yet  the  differ- 
ence of  degree  between  them  may  almost  be  said  to  constitute 
a  difference  in  kind.  The  latter  was  partial,  occasional ;  the 
former,  universal  in  its  range  and  immediate  in  its  action.  And 
this  contrast  takes  us  further  back  ;  for  the  insight  of  any  soul 
depends  on  its  moral  condition.  A  prophet's  vision  was  variable 
and  uncertain,  came  in  flashes  of  inspiration,  because  his  inner 
life  was  a  complex  struggle  of  good  and  evil,  and  only  at  times 
was  he  true  to  his  best  self.  In  these  moments  he  saw  God,  and 
therefore  in  a  measure  saw  men.  But  Jesus  had  the  single  eye 
of  the  pure  heart,  and  so  His  insight  remained  constant. 

We  are  not  able  to  say  whether  a  sinless  humanity,  from  the 
mere  fact  of  its  sinlessness,  its  unbroken  fellowship  with  God, 
would  not  possess  the  power  of  reading  individual  human  lives 
with  perfect  sureness.  But  we  can  say  that  mere  sinlessness 
would  not  entitle  a  man  to  take  up  the  attitude  of  sovereignty 
over   others  which  Jesus   assumed,  and   assert  for   himself  the 


Notes  to  Lecture  III.  401 

right  to  be  the  one  mediator  between  them  and  the  Father.  If 
we  confine  our  thoughts  merely  to  Christ's  knoivlcdge,  unerring 
though  that  be  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  it  may  not  be  possible  to 
affirm  that  it  involves  His  Deity :  but  then  His  knowledge  was 
indissolubly  conjoined  with  other  characteristics  that  do  involve 
it ;  and  so  we  are  driven  to  ask  ourselves  whether  the  existence 
of  an  absolutely  stainless  life,  of  the  pure  heart  to  which  alone 
full  spiritual  knowledge  is  given,  does  not  prove  that  it  is  no  mere 
part  of  organic  humanity,  but  implies  a  transcendent  being.  We 
have  no  data  which  would  warrant  us  in  holding  that  Christ's 
unique  Sonship,  the  consciousness  of  which  lay  at  the  root  of  all 
His  relations  to  men,  and  alone  accounts  for  His  tone  of  un- 
shared authority  as  disposing  of  them  now  and  judging  them 
hereafter,  contributed  nothing  to  His  unique  insight  into  their 
needs,  and  that  His  knowledge  was  but  the  prophetic  human 
gift  raised  to  its  highest  power.  All  that  we  can  say  on  this 
point  is  that,  so  far  as  we  can  judge.  His  divine  insight  acted  not 
absolutely,  but  along  what  we  call  prophetic  lines  (see  Gore, 
Dissertations,  pp.  80-8S). 

An  interesting  discussion  on  the  influence  of  Christ's 
surroundings  on  His  view  of  the  unseen  world,  will  be  found 
in  Bishop  Aloorhouse's  Teaching  of  Christ,  pp.  1 13-145. 


NOTE  14.     Seep,  it 8. 

The  Duration  of  Christ's  Intercourse  with  the  Tivelve. 

We  do  not  possess  the  materials  for  determining  with  certainty 
the  length  of  our  Lord's  ministry.  A  prevalent  view  in  the  Early 
Church  w\as  that  it  lasted  only  about  a  year ;  but,  in  spite  of  the 
ingenious  advocacy  of  Mr.  Browne  in  his  Qy-do  Scedoruni  (pp. 
342  ff.),  it  now  finds  litde  support.  The  Fourth  Evangelist 
mentions  three,  possibly  four,  Passovers ;  and  although,  as  both 
Lightfoot  and  Westcott  remind  us  {Biblical  Essays,  p.  58,  note  2  ; 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  Introduction,  p.  81),  we  have  no  guarantee 
that  he  gives  a  complete  list,  there  is  a  presumption  that  no 
26 


402  Notes  to  Lecture  III. 

omission  of  that  kind  would  be  made  by  a  writer  who  is  excep- 
tionally careful  in  his  chronological  references,  and  in  his  record 
of  the  Jewish  feasts.  Practically,  the  choice  lies  between  a  two 
years'  and  a  three  years'  ministry ;  but  anything  more  bewildering 
than  the  conflict  of  opinion  on  the  chronology  of  the  question, 
turning  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  unnamed  Feast  in  John  v.  i, 
is  hardly  to  be  found  in  literature.  It  is  not  my  intention  to 
enter  into  the  details,  but  merely  to  mark  the  broad  lines  of  the 
discussion. 

Three  main  views  may  be  distinguished : — 

1.  The  Feast  referred  to  was  the  Passover,  and  consequently 
the  ministry  extended  to  three  years  and  a  quarter,  from  January 
A.D.  27  to  April  A.D.  30.  This  may  be  called  the  traditional 
view,  and  is  well  represented  by  Andrews  in  his  Life  of  our  Lord. 
He  holds  that  the  early  Judcean  ministry  (John  iii.  22)  lasted 
eight  months,  that  Jesus  passed  northw^ard  through  Samaria  in 
December  a.d.  27  {ibid.  pp.  182,  183),  and  that  the  Galilean 
period  began  two  w^hole  years  before  the  Crucifixion. 

2.  The  supporters  of  the  two  years'  ministry  may  be  sub- 
divided into  two  classes — 

(i)  Those  who,  like  Wieseler  and  Ellicott  (C/^;w/.  Syjiops.; 
and  LLulsea7i  Lectures  iox  1859),  believe  that  the  Feast  was  Purim, 
March  a.d.  29.  They  agree  with  the  preceding  theory  as  to  the 
eight  months  spent  in  Judcea  and  the  journey  through  Samaria 
in  December ;  but  they  differ  from  it  in  regarding  this  first  year 
as  A.D.  28,  not  A.D.  27,  and  so  compress  into  the  three  weeks 
between  the  Purim  and  Passover  of  29,  the  events  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  former  view,  occupied  a  whole  year,  from  the  Passover 
of  28  to  the  Passover  of  29. 

(2)  Those  who  hold  that  our  Lord's  sojourn  in  Judaea  lasted 
only  a  month,  and  that  He  passed  through  Samaria  in  May 
A.D.  28.  They  usually  place  the  unnamed  Feast  in  September  of 
that  year,  Caspari  holding  it  to  be  the  Day  of  Atonement,  and 
Latham  and  others  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  This  hypothesis, 
by  greatly  lengthening  the  Galilean  j)criod,  escapes  the  objection 
urged  with  considerable  force  by  Andrews  {ibid.  pp.  194,  195) 
against  EUicott,  that  he   crowds   into  the   short   space   of  three 


Notes  to  Lecture  III.  403 

weeks  two-thirds  of  all  that  is  recorded  of  Christ's  work  in 
Galilee.  Much  will  depend  on  the  length  of  time  we  assign  to 
the  "  circuits "  (Luke  viii.  i  ;  Mark  vi.  6)  which  Jesus  made 
through  the  surrounding  towns  and  villages.  (See  Ellicott, 
ibid.  pp.  169,  note  3  ;  185,  note  i). 

How,  then,  does  the  case  stand  as  regards  the  duration  of 
Christ's  intercourse  with  the  Twelve  ?  Though  five  ^  of  the 
disciples  were,  according  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  (John  i.  35-51), 
called  by  Jesus  apparently  soon  after  His  Baptism,  yet  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  then  continued  with  Him.  They 
did  not  become  His  constant  companions  till  the  second  call  had 
been  addressed  to  them  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  as  related  by  the 
Synoptics  (Matt.  iv.  18-22).  In  the  case  of  some  of  the  Twelve, 
we  have  no  assurance  that  they  knew  Him  at  all  during  the 
Jud?ean  period.  But  on  Wieseler's  and  Ellicott's  view,  which  it 
would  be  presumptuous  to  pronounce  untenable,  there  would 
remain  only  fifteen  months  after  the  departure  from  Judaea.  I 
have  therefore  sought  to  avoid  any  possible  over-statement  by 
speaking  of  the  impressions  of  Jesus  which  the  disciples  had  at 
the  close  of  the  ministry,  as  based  on  at  least  a  year's  continuous 
intimacy,  though  personally  I  beUeve  that  either  of  the  other 
views,  which  both  assign  a  longer  term,  is  more  probable. 

Caspari's  Chronological  and  Geographical  Introduction  to  the 
Life  of  Christ  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  whole  question  ; 
but  it  is  rather  confusing  in  its  method  and  its  superabundance 
of  detail.  Latham's  Chronological  Appendix  in  his  Pastor 
Pastorum^  pp.  473-490,  will  be  found  useful  for  its  shortness  and 
lucidity. 

For  the  three  stages  of  the  disciples'  fellowship  with  Jesus 
and  their  special  characteristics,  see  Bruce,  Traini7ig  of  the 
Twelve^  pp.  11,  12. 

^  John,  Andrew,  Peter,  Nathanael  or  Bartholomew,  and  Philip.  ^^^^iIe 
there  is  no  mention  of  James  the  brother  of  John,  yet  there  is  every  prob- 
ability that  either  then  or  soon  after,  he  was  "  brought,"  like  Peter,  to  Jesus 
(John  i.  42). 


404  Notes  to  Lecture  IIL 

NOTE  15.     Seep.  122. 
CJirisfs  Self-restraint  in  His  Miracles. 

Nowhere  is  this  aspect  of  them,  especially  as  regards  the 
inipressiofi  they  produced,  stated  with  more  freshness  and  force 
than  in  Ecce  Homo. 

"  He  imposed  upon  himself  a  strict  restraint  in  the  use  of 
his  supernatural  powers.  He  adopted  the  principle  that  he  was 
not  sent  to  destroy  men's  lives  but  to  save  them,  and  rigidly 
abstained  in  practice  from  inflicting  any  kind  of  damage  or  harm. 
In  this  course  he  persevered  so  steadily  that  it  became  generally 
understood.  Everyone  knew  that  this  king^  whose  royal  pre- 
tensions were  so  prominent,  had  an  absolutely  unlimited  patience, 
and  that  he  would  endure  the  keenest  criticism,  the  bitterest  and 
most  malignant  personal  attacks.  Men's  mouths  were  opened  to 
discuss  his  claims  and  character  with  entire  freedom ;  so  far 
from  regarding  him  with  that  excessive  fear,  which  might  have 
prevented  them  from  receiving  his  doctrine  intelligently,  they 
learnt  gradually  to  treat  him,  even  while  they  acknowledged  his 
extraordinary  power,  with  a  reckless  animosity,  which  they  would 
have  been  afraid  to  show  towards  an  ordinary  enemy.  With 
curious  inconsistency,  they  openly  charged  him  with  being 
leagued  with  the  devil ;  in  other  words,  they  acknowledged  that 
he  was  capable  of  boundless  mischief,  and  yet  they  were  so  little 
afraid  of  him  that  they  were  ready  to  provoke  him  to  use  his 
whole  power  against  themselves.  The  truth  was,  that  they 
believed  him  to  be  disarmed  by  his  own  deliberate  resolution, 
and  they  judged  righdy.  He  punished  their  malice  only  by 
verbal  reproofs,  and  they  gradually  gathered  courage  to 
attack  the  life  of  one  whose  miraculous  powers  they  did  not 
question.   .  .  . 

"It  was  neither  for  his  miracles  nor  for  the  beauty  of  his 
doctrine  that  (Christ  was  worshipped.  Nor  was  it  for  his  winning 
personal  character,  nor  for  the  persecutions  he  endured,  nor  for 
his  martyrdom.  It  was  for  the  inimitable  unity  wliich  all  these 
things  made  when  taken  together.  In  other  words,  it  was  for 
this,  that  he  whose  power  and  greatness  as  shown  in  his  miracles 


Notes  to  Lecture  III.  405 

were  overwhelming,  denied  himself  the  use  of  his  power,  treated 
it  as  a  slight  thing,  walked  among  men  as  though  he  were  one  of 
them,  relieved  them  in  distress,  taught  them  to  love  each  other, 
bore  with  undisturbed  patience  a  perpetual  hailstorm  of  calumny ; 
and  when  his  enemies  grew  fiercer,  continued  still  to  endure 
their  attacks  in  silence,  until,  petrified  and  bewildered  with 
astonishment,  men  saw^  him  arrested  and  put  to  death  with 
torture,  refusing  steadfastly  to  use  in  his  own  behalf  the  power 
he  conceived  he  held  for  the  benefit  of  others.  It  was  the  com- 
bination of  greatness  and  self-sacrifice  which  won  their  hearts, 
the  mighty  powers  held  under  a  mighty  control,  the  unspeakable 
condescension,  the  Cj-oss  of  Cy^m/."— Pp.  43-46. 


NOTE  16.     See  p.  123. 
Miracle  and  Natural  Revelation. 

The  Greek  Fathers,  especially,  have  as  a  fundamental  thought 
the  correlation  of  Christianity  to  all  other  revelations  of  God. 
Nature  itself  implied  for  them  that  which  was  above  nature ;  and 
they  argued,  as  Canon  Gore  says,  that  "no  one  who  believes 
that  God  is  living  and  manifesting  Himself  in  the  world,  can 
reasonably  repudiate  His  intensified  presence  in  Christ."  The 
miraculous  in  Christ's  person  and  work  was  to  them  a  revelation 
of  God,  which  accentuated  and  made  clear  the  natural  revelation 
that  of  itself  did  not  suffice  for  those  whose  vision  of  the  divine 
was  darkened  by  sin. 

Athanasius  and  Augustine  expressly  say  "that  the  miracles 
or  exceptional  actions  of  God  are  to  be  accounted  for  by  man's 
blindness  to  Him  in  His  normal  method." — Gore,  Incarnation  of 
the  Son  of  God,  p.  246.  For  detailed  references,  see  ibid.  p.  245  ; 
1'rench,  Miracles^  chap.  ii. 


4o6  Notes  to  Lectttre  III, 

NOTE  17.     Seep.  123. 
Miracle  as  belonging  to  a  disorganised  World. 

Professor  A.  C.  Fraser  has  an  admirable  criticism  of  the 
Spinozistic  view  of  miracle  in  his  Second  Series  of  Gifford 
Lectures,  Philosophy  of  Theism.  "  Spino/a's  argument  for  the 
absolute  impossibility  of  physical  miracles  may  be  taken  as 
expressing,  in  a  philosophical  way,  the  common  scientific  diffi- 
culty. The  infinite  system  of  God  or  Nature,  it  is  by  implication 
argued,  if  it  is  Divine,  must  be  perfect.  .  .  .  Miraculous  suspen- 
sion of  the  perfect  reason,  perfectly  expressed  in  whatever  is  by 
nature,  must  mean  irrationality  in  natural  law  thus  dispensed 
with  ;  it  implies  inconstancy  or  caprice,  not  the  absolute  per- 
fection in  which  there  can  be  no  room  for  second  or  amended 
thoughts.  ...  To  interpose  occasional  physical  miracles  in  the 
physical  system  would  be  to  make  it  other  than  the  perfectly 
rational  system  which  natural  science  presupposes  that  it  must  be. 
And  so  we  are  asked,  on  these  premisses,  to  conclude  that  the 
miraculous  entrance  into  existence  of  any  visible  event,  or  of  any 
invisible  inspired  experience  of  which  no  natural  account  can  be 
given,  is  absolutely  impossible,  and  not  merely  a  physically  un- 
interpretable  fact. 

"  This  might  perhaps  be  a  sufficient  argument,  if  the  universe 
were  a  wholly  natural  or  non-moral  universe — if  it  consisted  of 
non-moral  things  only,  and  not  also,  and  this  too  in  its  highest 
known  aspect,  of  good  and  bad  persons.  Then  the  only  sort  of 
science  possible  would  be  found  in  the  sciences  commonly  called 
'  natural,'  which  search  for  the  caused  causes,  or  natural  signs,  of 
events.  It  might  be  an  argument,  if  men  at  their  highest,  accord- 
ing to  the  true  ideal  of  man,  were  only  conscious  automata,  who 
could  have  no  more  than  a  physically  scientific  interest  in  them- 
selves or  in  anything  else — if  this  were  a  world  in  the  experience 
of  which  man  could  have  no  final  moral  trust,  and  in  which  he 
could  not  be  responsible  for  what  he  was  or  did,  because  he  could 
not,  in  any  degree,  make  or  unmake  his  own  character.  But  is 
this  the  sort  of  universe  in  which  man  actually  finds  himself?  Is 
this  not  a  world  in  which  men  can  and  do  act  immorally,  and  in 


Notes  to  Lecture  III.  407 

which,  accordingly,  without  unreason,  omnipotent  goodness  may 
be  revealed  in  a  larger  reason  than  that  measured  in  terms  of  the 
causal  connections  visible  in  nature,  yet  not  inconsistent  with  this 
natural  evolution  ?  The  existence  of  individual  persons — moral 
forces — may  make  reasonable  an  unfolding  of  divine  Purpose 
larger  than  that  which  appears  in  physical  causation  measured  by 
sensuous  intelligence.  It  seems  not  inconsistent  with  reason  that 
physical  order  and  method  of  procedure  should  not  be  the  only, 
or  the  highest,  form  which  omnipotence  reveals,  and  that,  in  the 
final  rationale  of  the  universe,  the  customary  order  of  events 
should  have  a  subordinate  place,  in  an  incompletely  understood 
yet  intellectually  possible  harmony.  .  .  . 

"  '  I  hold,'  says  Leibniz,  '  that  when  God  works  miracles  He 
does  it  not  in  order  to  supply  the  wants  of  fiature^  but  those  of 
grace;  and  whoever  thinks  otherwise  must  have  a  very  mean 
notion  of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  God.'  Miracles  are  in  that 
case  divine  or  rational  acts,  proper  to  a  universe  that  includes 
persons  under  moral  relations  ;  while  they  would  be  out  of  place 
in  a  universe  of  things  wholly  under  physical  or  mechanical 
relations." — (Pp.  234-237.) 

Professor  Fraser  goes  on  to  say  (p.  238) :  "  But  if,  in  the  pro- 
gressive development  of  the  human  mind,  man's  conceptions  of 
what  is  natural  could  become  so  enlarged  as  that  the  whole 
Christian  revelation  of  God  should  be  seen  to  be  a  development 
of  the  ordinary  course  of  nature — theistic  faith,  the  most  deeply 
Christian,  would  then  be  discovered  to  be  the  most  natural  re- 
ligion of  all,  but  surely  would  not  on  that  account  be  undivine.  It 
would  rather  be  seen  as  the  culmination  of  the  normal  self-mani- 
festation of  God."  It  may  be  questioned  whether  such  language 
does  not  give  rise  to  confusion.  The  rationale  of  physical  miracle 
does  not  rest  merely  on  the  fact  that  the  universe  includes  persons 
as  well  as  things,  \i persotis  were  as  true  as  things  to  the  respect- 
ive laws  imposed  upon  them,  that  rationale  would  disappear ; 
for  it  rests  finally  on  the  moral  disorder  in  which  the  persons  have 
freely  involved  themselves.  In  the  highest  meaning  of  the  word, 
it  is  natiwal^  i.e.  according  to  the  nature  of  God,  who  is  the  life 
of  the  universe,  that  in  the  exercise  of  His  restorative  grace  He 


4o8  Notes  to  Lecture  III. 

should,  as  Leibniz  says,  manifest  Himself  in  ways  that  imply  a 
modification  of  the  laws  of  that  physical  sphere  which  we  com- 
monly call  Nature.  But  to  suggest  that  if  our  conceptions  were 
only  sufficiently  enlarged,  we  should  see  in  this  modification  but 
the  culmination  of  the  normal  self-manifestation  of  God,  con- 
veys the  idea  that  sin,  which  is  the  pre-condition  of  the  miracle, 
is  as  much  an  expression  as  '  the  ordinaiy  course  of  nature ' 
is,  of  the  ultimate  divine  purpose  and  will.  The  protest  of  the 
moral  consciousness  on  this  point  cannot  be  set  aside,  however 
difficult  it  may  be  to  overcome  the  metaphysical  and  scientific 
argument  for  the  necessary  existence  of  moral  evil.  See  Note 
2^1,  p.  450,  "  Evolution  and  the  Fall."  For  other  criticisms  of 
Spinoza's  view,  vid.  Trench,  Notes  on  the  Miracles^  pp.  1 5  ff. ; 
and  Mozley,  Miracles^  pp.  19,  215  ff. 


NOTE  18.     See  p.  125. 
TJie  false  View  of  Miracle. 

"  I  remarked  on  the  absurdity  of  founding  religion  on  histories 
of  miracles.  '  Ah,  les  miracles  ! '  exclaimed  D'Azeglio,  '  je  n'en 
crois  rien.  Ce  sont  de  coups  d'etat  celestes.'  Could  the  strongest 
argument  against  them  have  been  more  neatly  packed  in  one 
simile  ?  A  coup  d^etat  is  a  practical  confession  that  the  regular 
and  orderly  methods  of  government  have  failed  in  the  hands  of 
the  Governor,  and  that  He  is  driven  to  irregular  and  lawless 
methods  to  compass  His  ends  and  vindicate  His  sovereignty.  A 
coup  d'etat  is  like  the  act  of  an  impatient  chess-player,  who, 
finding  himself  losing  the  game  while  playing  fairly,  sweeps  some 
pieces  from  the  board  to  recover  his  advantage.  Is  this  to  be 
believed  of  Divine  rule  of  the  universe?"  {Life  of  Frances  I\ni'er 
Cobbe,  vol.  ii.  p.  6). 

Nothing  could  l)e  better  than  D'Azeglio's  ej)igram  or  Miss 
Cobbe's  comment  as  an  example  of  the  false  idea  of  miracle. 
They  have  underlying  them  exactly  the  same  fiillacy  that  vitiates 
Emerson's  phrase  that  '  miracle  is  monster.'  The  natural  order 
is  treated  as  displaying  all  the  rules  of  the  game,  all  the  methods 


Notes  to  Lccttt7'e  II L  409 

of  regular  government.      But  this  is  precisely  what  is  rendered 
unlikely  by  the  moral  problem  which  the  world  presents. 


NOTE  19.     See  p.  131. 

Dr.  Martineau  on  Peter's  Confession  of  Jesus^ 
Messiahs/lip. 

The  futility  of  Dr.  Martineau's  attempt,  in  his  Seat  of  Aiitho7'ity 
m  Religiofi,  to  prove  that  the  title  of  Messiah  was  never  accepted 
by  Jesus,  but  only  ascribed  to  Him  and  read  into  His  words  by 
the  apostles  after  His  death,  is  exemplified  in  his  rendering  ot 
Jesus'  reply  to  Peter's  confession.  He  treats  it  as  a  repudiation 
of  the  Messiahship.  "  The  impetuous  apostle  breaks  out,  '  Thou 
art  the  Messiah.'  Does  Jesus  accept  the  part  ?  His  answer  is 
peremptory.  '  Silence  !  to  not  a  creature  are  you  to  say  such  a 
thing  again  ! '  and  He  instantly  adds  that  at  Jerusalem  He  expects 
the  cross  and  not  the  crown.  .  .  .  The  state  of  mind  implied  in 
both  the  speakers  of  this  dialogue  is  exactly  what  would  exist  if  the 
one  had  heard  and  the  other  inwardly  seen  nothing  beyond  the 
tragic  issue  at  Jerusalem.  If  Peter  had  just  been  told  not  only 
of  the  cross  but  of  the  resurrection,  could  he  have  deprecated  the 
death  and  taken  no  notice  of  the  immortal  glory  to  which  it  was 
but  the  prelude  and  condition  ?  His  remonstrance  is  plainly 
occupied  with  a  humiliation  pure  and  simple,  and  relieved  by  no 
reversal.  And  if  Jesus  knew  and  had  just  said  that  He  should  '  lay 
down  His  life  that  He  might  take  it  again,'  if,  having  explained  that 
this  was  the  divine  gateway  to  the  Messiahship,  He  was  going  to 
Jerusalem  on  purpose  to  pass  through  it,  how  is  it  possible  that 
He  should  meet  the  apostle's  suggestion  as  an  alternative,  and 
thrust  it  away  as  a  temptation  ?  It  is  only  in  the  deep  darkness 
of  the  soul,  where  nothing  is  clear  but  the  nearest  duty  and  its 
instant  anguish,  and  the  issue  is  shut  out  by  the  midnight  between, 
that  any  Satan  can  slink  in  with  pleas  of  ease  and  evasion." 
—(Pp.  349,  350.) 

I.  Even  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  Mark's  account  (chap,  viii.), 
where  the  subsequent  benediction  on  Peter  involving  the  clear 


4ro  Notes  to  Lecture  III. 

acceptance  of  the  title  is  not  given,  the  prohibition  ("  He 
charged  them  that  they  should  tell  no  man  of  Him  "),  standing 
where  it  does,  will  not  bear  this  interpretation.  It  was  Jesus 
Himself  who  led  up  to  the  subject,  who,  after  hearing  the  dif- 
ferent verdicts  passed  on  Him  by  the  people,  asked  the  disciples 
pointedly  for  theirs.  How  could  He  possibly  have  abjured 
Peter's  reply  in  the  terms  suggested,  "  Silence  !  to  not  a  creature 
are  you  to  say  such  a  thing  again  ! "  without  going  on  to  tell  them 
who  He  was  and  what  they  were  to  think  regarding  Him  ?  "\^'ould 
He  have  put  an  inquiry,  and,  finding  them  in  total  darkness  or 
gross  error,  have  left  them  there  ?  The  key  to  the  prohibition 
lies  in  the  transformation  which  He  introduced  into  the  con- 
ception of  the  Messiahship.  In  that  new  sense  alone  He 
assumed  the  name.  The  disciples  had  not  fully  grasped  it,  but 
the  beginning  of  it  had  been  laid  in  their  thought  through  their 
intimate  association  with  Him ;  and  they  had  come  to  have  such 
confidence  in  His  leadership  that  He  could  now  venture  to 
acknowledge  to  them  w^hat,  if  promulgated  generally  to  the 
multitudes  who  had  undergone  no  such  preparation,  would  give 
rise  to  unavoidable  and  perilous  misconstruction.  Nothing  can 
be  plainer  than  that  Jesus  was  only  forbidding  them  to  make  the 
declaration  openly,  not  because  it  was  untrue,  but  because  the 
time  had  not  come  for  making  it. 

2.  To  say  that,  if  Jesus  believed,  as  the  record  asserts,  that 
death  was  but  the  gateway  to  resurrection  and  triumph,  Peter's 
suggestion  of  escape  from  it  would  have  constituted  no  tempta- 
tion for  Him,  is  psychologically  false.  True  though  it  was  that 
it  behoved  Him  to  suffer  these  things,  and  enter  into  His  glory, 
yet  the  assurance  of  final  victory  did  not  eliminate  the  agony  of 
the  intervening  trial.  For  the  conflict  with  sin  in  which  He  was 
engaged  had  an  element  in  it  of  unimaginable  bitterness  ;  and 
the  death  in  which  it  culminated  hung  over  His  thought  like  a 
black  cloud,  and  filled  Him  months  beforehand  with  a  sense  of 
oppression  and  horror.  (See  Lecture  VI.)  It  was  the  specific 
and  unparalleled  (juality  of  the  suffering  through  which  He  had  to 
pass,  and  the  natural  shrinking  with  which  He  anticipated  it, 
that  made  Peter's  remonstrance  so  painful  to  him ;  because  that 


Notes  to  Lecttire  IV,  411 

remonstrance  not  only  awaked  in  Him  feelings  which  He  had 
strenuously  put  aside  and  overcome  as  disloyal,  but  it  brought 
vividly  before  Him  the  disappointment  and  sorrow  which  His 
resolve  would  cause  to  the  hearts  He  loved,  who  amid  difficulty 
and  misgiving  would  follow  Him  to  the  end. 

3.  Dr.  Martineau  ridicules  what  he  calls  the  strange  state- 
ment, that  "  they  questioned  among  themselves  what  the  rising 
from  the  dead  should  mean,"  by  asking  whether  the  rising  from 
the  dead  was  not  the  most  familiar  of  thoughts  to  the  Israelite 
of  that  day,  the  very  matter  in  dispute  between  Pharisee  and 
Sadducee,  and  as  such  discussed  before  these  very  disciples  by 
Jesus  Himself.  But  surely  the  explanation  is  not  far  to  seek. 
The  difficulty  of  the  disciples  was  not  in  believing  in  a  resurrec- 
tion, but  in  conceiving  what  possible  connection  it  could  have 
with  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  as  they  understood  it,  or  in  what 
way  it  would  further  His  work. 


LECTURE    IV. 

NOTE  20.     Seep.  150. 

Christ's  Resurrection  as  a  "  Process^* 

Dr.  Newman  Smyth  (^O hi  Faiths  in  Neiv  Light ^  pp.  156,  157) 
holds  that  during  the  forty  days  the  body  of  Jesus  was  under- 
going a  "process  of  resurrection,"  and  that  the  earthly  element 
which  still  in  part  belonged  to  it  when  He  rose  out  of  the  tomb, 
was  gradually  attenuated  or  dissipated  till  its  final  disappearance 
at  the  ascension,  when  the  body  became  purely  spiritual.  His 
endeavour  to  show  that  the  successive  appearances  recorded 
indicate  such  a  gradual  transformation  seems  to  me  quite  in- 
effectual. To  say  that  Christ's  aspect  to  Mary  Magdalene 
when  at  first  she  mistook  Him  for  the  gardener,  and  then  the 
next  moment  saw  in  Him  something  withdrawn  and  unearthly, 
was  of  a  more  human  character  than  that  in  which  He  appeared 
to  the  discioles  later  in  the  day  and  partook  of  food  before  them 


412  Notes  to  Lectttrc  IV. 

(John  XX.  11-23  \  I-ukc  xxiv.  36-43),  is  surely  the  reverse  ot  the 
fact.  Dr.  Smyth  makes  much  of  the  circumstance  that  in  the 
later  Galilean  manifestation  the  seven  disciples  did  not  know 
Him  as  He  stood  on  the  beach  (John  xxi.  4) ;  but,  immediately 
after  (vers.  12-22),  the  Evangelist  gives  us  the  most  realistic 
account  of  the  meal  which  Jesus  provided  for  them,  and  of  His 
conversation  with  Peter.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  by  "picking 
and  choosing  "  certain  incidents  out  of  the  accounts  to  make  a 
plausible  theory.  But,  taking  the  record  as  a  whole,  there  is  as 
much  plausibility  in  the  view  that  it  is  the  earlier  rather  than  the 
later  manifestations  that  contain  more  of  the  unearthly  element. 
Matthew's  declaration  (xxviii.  17)  that  at  the  appearance  to  the 
Eleven  on  the  mountain  in  Galilee,  "some  doubted,"  though  they 
had  already  seen  Him  several  times  before,  does  not  really  point 
the  other  way ;  for  it  seems  probable  that  on  each  occasion  of 
His  manifestation  they  had  at  first  their  misgivings  regarding 
Him,  which  He  subsequently  removed  by  plain  proofs  of  His 
presence.  If  some  of  the  Eleven  doubted  for  a  time,  they  soon 
ceased  to  doubt.  The  idea  that  Christ's  resurrection,  or  assump- 
tion of  the  resurrection  body,  was  a  process  slowly  realising  itself 
till  it  was  practically  completed  at  the  point  of  His  ascension, 
is  an  arbitrary  supposition,  which  is  contradicted  rather  than 
supported  by  the  evidence. 


NOTE  21.     Seep.  152. 

TJic  Ascension  and  t he  Forty  Days. 

As  textual  criticism  regards  as  doubtful  both  the  verse  in 
Mark  which  refers  to  the  ascension,  and  the  phrase  Kat  ai^ccf^epeTo 
€L<s  Tov  ovf)av6v  m  Luke  xxiv.  51,  some  hold  that  no  account  of 
the  ascension  is  given  us  in  the  Gospels,  and  that  Acts  (i.  9-1 1 ) 
is  our  only  authority.  J>ut  Euke's  expression  (xxiv.  51),  Suart] 
a-rr  (lvtmv,  the  genuineness  of  which  is  not  disputed,  certainly 
means  not  merely  a  withdrawal,  as  after  the  previous  appear- 
ances, but  a  final  separation.     \'ers.  52,  53  (/xcra  \apa^  /xeyaAv/?) 


Notes  to  Lccttu^e  IV,  413 

not  only  show  that  the  separation  was  final,  but  that  it  occurred 
under  circumstances  that  demonstrated  to  the  disciples  their 
Master's  completed  triumph. ^  Dr.  Gould  {Iiiio-national  Co??wi. 
St.  Mark,  p.  309)  says  that  even  if  the  doubtful  words  di/e^e/jero 
in  Luke,  and  aveXr'jfxcjiOr]  in  Mark,  be  taken  into  account,  they  do 
not  of  themselves  imply  a  visible  ascent.  But  the  subsequent  joy 
of  the  disciples  distinctly  points  to  some  such  manifestation.  The 
nature  of  Christ's  risen  appearances,  with  their  dual  characteristic, 
essentially  impHed  their  temporariness.  As  they  were  themselves 
necessary  as  the  objective  signs  of  His  continued  and  trans- 
figured life,  it  was  natural  that  they  should  culminate  in  a  visible 
representation  of  the  beginning  of  His  supreme  power  and  reign. 
Cf.  Weiss,  Li/e  of  Christ,  vol.  iii.  407-409. 

The  book  of  Acts  is  our  only  source  for  the  statement  that 
forty  days  intervened  between  the  resurrection  and  the  ascen- 
sion. From  the  Gospel  of  Luke  it  might  be  inferred  that  both 
events  took  place  on  one  day ;  and  the  same  interpretation 
might  be  put  on  the  disputed  passage  in  Mark  (Gould,  ibid. 
p.  308).  It  has  been  often  suggested  that  Luke  gained  his 
information  on  the  point  after  his  Gospel  had  been  completed. 
Was  then  the  period  of  forty  days,  mentioned  by  him  in  Acts,  not 
known  to  Christian  disciples  generally,  even  thirty  or  forty  years 
after  the  ascension,  when  the  Third  Gospel  was  written ;  and  if 
known  generally,  could  it  have  been  unknown  to  one  who  claims 
to  have  "  traced  the  course  of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first "  ? 
(Luke  i.  3).  The  Fourth  Gospel,  in  its  account  of  the  appear- 
ances, speaks  of  a  week,  and  in  the  appendix  points  to  a  longer 
term.  Nor  does  the  Third  Gospel  necessarily  imply  any  contra- 
diction of  the  statement  in  Acts.  It  names  no  specific  time; 
and  the  fact  that  the  words  admit  of  the  inference  as  to  a  single 
day  may  be  due  to  that  indifference  to  chronological  exactness 
which  is  so  manifest  throughout  Luke's  Gospel.  Cf  Bp.  Light- 
foot,  Biblical  Essay s^  p.  1 80. 

^  It  is  (juite  possible,  as  Dr.  I'lunimer  {//ifeni.  Co/ii/zi.  S/.  Luke,  \i.  565) 
argues,  that  Luke,  when  lie  declares  in  Acts  i.  i,  2,  that  he  had  already 
written  the  life  of  Jesus  ^xp'  '^;s  ij/xepas  .  .  .  ave\i)i.i.(f)d-q,  "  considered  that  he 
had  recorded  the  ascension  in  his  Gospel." 


414  Notes  to  Lecttire  IV, 

NOTE  22.     See  p.  164. 

Harnack  a7id  Martinemi  07t  the  Significance  of  the 
CJiristopJianies  for  subsequent  Ages. 

"  However  firm,"  says  Harnack  {History  of  Dogiua^  vol.  i. 
p.  86,  ;/.),  "  may  have  been  the  faith  of  the  disciples  in  the 
Appearances  of  Jesus  in  their  midst,  and  it  was  firm,  to  believe 
in  appearances  which  others  have  had  is  a  frivolity  which  is 
always  avenged  by  rising  doubts."  To  the  same  effect  Martineau 
declares  in  his  Seat  of  Authority  that  these  visions  cannot  serve 
"  as  objective  proofs  of  His  immortal  life.  As  psychological 
facts  in  the  consciousness  of  others,  their  validity  is  simply  for 
the  persons  to  whom  they  w^re  present ;  and  to  us  the  only 
thing  they  attest  is  the  intense  power  of  His  spirit  over  the  springs 
of  veneration  and  trust  in  them"  (p.  376).  But  this  has  no  more 
than  a  superficial  reasonableness.  Why  am  I  entitled  to  accept 
these  appearances  on  the  testimony  of  others  ?  Because  the 
conviction  which  I  have  of  the  character  of  Jesus,  of  His 
dominance  and  centrality  for  mankind,  drawn  from  what  He 
was  during  His  ministry,  would  have  been  turned  into  an 
enigma,  as  that  of  the  disciples  was,  by  His  death.  His  cruci- 
fixion, had  it  been  the  close  of  all,  would  have  been  as  unnatural 
to  me  as  it  was  to  them  ;  and  nothing  but  such  appearances, 
which  testified  both  to  the  continuity  and  the  transfiguration  of 
His  earthly  life,  would  have  resolved  the  enigma,  and  restored 
my  inmost  experiences  of  Him  to  harmony.  The  mere  circum- 
stance that  I  did  not  myself  live  at  the  time  when  the  revelation 
was  in  process,  does  not  disable  7ne  from  seeing  the  congruity  a7id 
necessary  inte?'dependence  of  its  different  parts.  I  can  judge  of 
the  truth  of  the  disciples'  witness  regarding  what  I  have  no 
direct  means  of  perceiving,  from  its  relation  to  what  I  do 
perceive,  and  what  I  actually  know  of  Him.  Nor  is  there  any 
inconsistency  in  saying  that  His  apj)oarances  to  unbelievers 
would  have  been  futile,  and  yet  that  the  Church  should  preach 
the  resurrection  to  all  men  as  a  part  of  the  Christian  Faith. 
For  the  Church  can  never  preach  it  effectively  except  to  those 
whom  it  first  subjects  to  the  discipline  of  intercourse  with  Jesus 


Notes  to  Lecture  IV.  415 

which  the  apostles  underwent ;  i.e.  to  those  in  whom  this 
pr(Tparatio  produces  the  same  fitness  for  seeing  in  the  risen 
Christ  alike  the  crown  and  the  interpretation  of  His  previous 
life  on  earth. 


NOTE  23.     See  p.  167. 

Hcmiituins  Conception  of  the  Exalted  Christ. 

Professor  J.  wS.  Candlish,  in  reviewing  Herrmann's  Communion 
with  God  {^Critical  Heviezv,  April  1896,  p.  123)  says:  "While  he 
contemplates  almost  exclusively  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus,  he 
avoids  the  fatal  error  of  a  merely  humanitarian  view,  that  of 
making  our  Saviour  a  mere  departed  man.  He  believes  that 
He  is  living  now,  able  to  help  and  bless  us.  Only,  he  insists 
that  we  should  always  look  at  Him  through  His  earthly  life, 
because  as  to  His  present  activity  we  have  only  general  state- 
ments, and  those  actions  of  His  that  reveal  His  character  and 
will,  all  belong  to  His  life  on  earth."  This  seems  to  me  hardly 
to  bring  out  what  is  really  involved  in  Herrmann's  position.  He 
certainly  affirms  that,  when  God  touches  us  and  reveals  Himself 
to  us  in  the  historical  Jesus,  we  cannot  but  believe  that  Jesus 
is  taking  part  now  in  our  struggles  "with  all  His  human 
sympathy  and  power."  But  as  he  asserts  quite  as  strenuously 
that  this  belief  is  only  a  thought  or  doctrine  arising  from  and  • 
expressing  faith  in  our  redemption,  that  there  is  no  actual  fact 
known  to  us  which  could  produce  this  belief  by  its  undoubted 
reality,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  experience  which  warrants 
our  speaking  of  a  communion  with  the  Exalted  Christ  {Com- 
munion with  God,  p.  223),  he  practically  empties  the  belief  in 
Christ's  present  help  of  all  rational  content.  The  Christian 
consciousness  from  the  first  has  declared  that  so  far  as  any  fact 
of  experience  attests  communion  with  the  Father,  it  equally 
attests  communion  with  Him  through  whom  alone  the  Father 
is  truly  known.  They  form  parts  of  one  indivisible  whole  (see 
Lecture  IV.  p.  166).  Herrmann,  indeed,  appears  to  agree  with 
this,  when  he   quotes  with  approval  Luther's   saying  that  "the 


4i6  Notes  to  Lecture  V, 

recognition  wherein  He  (Christ)  and  the  Father  are  recognised  is 
one  recognition,"  though  he  immediately  proceeds  with  his  usual 
confused  combination  of  opposites  to  evacuate  the  declaration 
of  its  obvious  meaning.  Luther  meant  just  what  John  meant 
Avhen  he  wrote,  "  Our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and  with 
His  Son  Jesus  Christ"  (i  John  i.  3).  To  speak  of  a  present 
communion  with  the  Father  through  a  Christ  who  is  not  present 
with  us  and  in  us,  or  who  does  not  verify  His  presence,  is  some- 
thing like  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Moreover,  as  it  is  merely 
^''  human  sympathy  and  power"  w^hich  Herrmann  ascribes  to  the 
Exalted  Christ,  it  is  folly  to  think  of  these  qualities  as  possess- 
ing an  unlimited  value  for  all  souls  :  and  if  limited,  hoiv  Jar 
are  we  entitled  to  draw  comfort  from  the  thought  of  Him  ? 
Anyone  who  maintains,  as  Herrmann  is  said  to  have  done  at  a 
recent  Conference  at  Eisenach,  that  "  all  speculations  concerning 
the  pre-existence  of  Christ  must  be  declined  with  a  heart  as 
cold  as  ice,"  ought  to  see  that  in  that  case  all  speculations  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  Christ's  present  extste?ice  and  the  extent  to 
which  He  intervenes  to  aid  us  are  fundamentally  nugatory, 
and  the  religious  comfort  based  upon  them  a  superstitious 
emotionaUsm. 


LECTURE    V. 


NOTE  24.     Seep.  172. 
The  Universalisvi  of  Christ. 

Though  it  was  only  gradually  that  the  full  significance  of 
Christ's  divine  Sonship  was  realised,  yet  the  recognition  of  His 
cosmic  function  involved  no  conflict  of  oi)inion  among  believers. 
It  was  simply  the  inevitable  statement  for  thought  of  what  their 
belief  implied. 

But  on  another  vital  point  the  ("hurch  had  to  pass  through 
a  i)rolonged  struggle  before  reaching  unanimity,  namely,  the 
(juestion  of  the  universalist  or  particularist  reference  of  Christ's 
teaching  and  work.       How  are  we  to  account  for  Paul's  con- 


Notes  to  Lecture  V,  417 

troversy  with  the  Judaist  section  ?  Was  it  due  to  a  mis- 
understanding by  the  original  apostles  of  Christ's  universalism  ? 
Or  was  Christ's  own  view  particularist  and  Jewish?  "Jesus," 
says  Weiss,  "  had  appeared  in  Israel,  and  on  principle  laboured 
for  Israel  exclusively.  He  wished  to  realise  the  kingdom  of 
God,  according  to  promise,  among  the  chosen  race,  who  were 
to  participate  in  its  salvation  to  the  greatest  extent.  It  is  true 
that  when  the  people  became  more  and  more  hopelessly 
hardened.  He  had  spoken  of  the  passing  over  of  salvation  to 
other  peoples,  and  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
temple ;  but  this  prophetic  threat  might  remain  for  ever  un- 
fulfilled, if  the  nation  as  such  were  to  turn  and  be  converted " 
{Introduction  to  the  New  Testament^  vol.  i.  p.  166), 

I.  It  is  perfectly  obvious  that  in  one  sense  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  had  a  particularist  aspect.  He  was  not  only  a  Jew  by  birth, 
by  training,  by  all  the  surroundings  of  His  life,  but  He  was  loyal 
to  His  Jewish  inheritance.  He  had  the  deepest  reverence  for 
the  older  revelation ;  and  His  own  teaching  had  for  its  pre- 
supposition the  acquaintance  of  His  hearers  with  the  law  and 
the  prophets.  But  all  this  does  not  prove  His  thought 
particularist  in  essence.  Just  because  He  was  speaking  to 
Jews,  He  bade  them  be  true  Jews,  and  enjoined  the  faithful 
observance  of  their  national  worship.  Only  thus  could  they 
discharge  the  function  which  was  theirs  in  the  order  of  Pro- 
vidence :  for,  as  Burke  finely  puts  it,  "the  situation  of  man  is  the 
preceptor  of  his  duty."  But  the  real  question  is,  What  did 
Jesus  emphasise  as  primary  and  fundamental?  Was  it  not 
what  was  ethical,  spiritual,  what  belonged  to  man  as  man  and 
to  his  essential  relation  to  God  ?  Can  we  point  to  anything  in 
His  message  concerning  the  kingdom  of  God — its  nature  and 
the  conditions  of  entrance  into  it — which  made  that  kingdom 
characteristically  Jewish  as  opposed  to  Gentile  ?  Jesus  did  not 
openly  repudiate  the  distinction  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  as 
Paul  afterwards  did ;  but  He  undermitied  it.  The  grounds  on 
which  He  broke  down  the  barriers  within  Judaism  between 
Pharisees  and  sinners,  between  the  scribes  and  the  common 
people,  implied  the  breaking  down  of  all  barriers  between 
27 


41 8  Notes  to  Lectui^e  V. 

Judaism  and  what  lay  outside  of  it.  Speaking  broadly,  there- 
fore, we  may  say  that,  from  first  to  last.  His  teaching  was 
implicitly  universal.  That  He  Himself  did  not  see  that  it  was 
so,  is  wholly  incredible.  We  cannot  tell,  indeed,  what  know- 
ledge Jesus  possessed  of  the  nations  beyond ;  but  that  does  not 
affect  the  fact  that  He  must  have  recognised  that  the  demands 
which  He  made  for  the  true  service  of  God  could  be  fulfilled 
by  any  earnest  soul  of  whatever  land  or  race. 

It  is  specially  needful  to  insist  on  this  point,  that  universalism 
was  a  necessary  implicatiofi  of  His  thought,  because  with  regard 
to  the  explicit  utterances  of  it  attributed  to  Him,  attempts  have 
been  made  to  throw  doubt  on  their  authenticity,  or  to  explain 
away  their  importance  as  merely  forced  from  Him  by  the 
exigencies  of  His  later  position.  If,  however,  it  be  embedded  in 
His  whole  view  of  man's  relation  to  God,  then  the  occasional 
expression  of  it  becomes  in  every  way  probable.  Even  in  the 
very  flood-tide  of  His  Galilean  ministry,  He  declared  that  many 
should  come  from  the  East  and  the  ^^^est,  and  should  sit  down 
with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  while 
the  sons  of  the  kingdom  should  be  cast  out.^  But  it  was  only 
natural  that  these  intimations  should  chiefly  belong,  as  repre- 
sented in  the  records,"  to  the  closing  period  of  His  life,  not 
because  the  idea  only  then  dawned  upon  Him,  but  because  the 
circumstances  made  its  utterance  appropriate  or  indispensable. 
As  was  remarked  regarding  His  foresight  of  His  own  death, 
no  blunder  could  be  greater  than  to  "judge  of  His  knowledge 
of  His  mission  at  any  point  by  the  degree  in  which  He  com- 
municated it  to  others."  ^ 

Jesus  felt  Himself  called  of  God  to  a  lot  within  the  chosen 
people,  because  He  was  Himself  the  culmination  of  the  revela- 
tion made  to  them  in  the  past.  As  that  revelation  had  been 
through  a  special  nation,  so  it  had  to  complete  itself  there.  That 
He  Himself  lived  within  the  limits  of  Judaism  was  not  a  confes- 
sion that  He  was  merely  the  crown  of  a  national  or  racial  faith, 

1  IMatt.  viii.  1 1,  12. 

2  Matt.  xxi.  43,  xxiv.  14;  Mark  xiii.  10;  Luko  xiii.  29  ;  John  \ii.  20-32. 
^  See  ante,  p.  100. 


Notes  to  Lecture  V,  419 

but  rather  the  vindication  of  the  older  religion  as  an  inherent 
part  of  a  world-revelation.  It  was  not  the  lowering  of  His 
message  to  the  particularism  of  the  Jewish  religion,  but  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  latter  into  a  universal  significance  first  fully  revealed 
in  Him. 

The  problem  which  Jesus  had  to  solve  was  not  the  destruc- 
tion of  Judaism,  but  its  consummation,  the  liberation  of  its 
spiritual  content  from  the  restrictions  of  its  form.  That  under 
such  circumstances  as  those  depicted  to  us  by  Luke  (iv.  16-31) 
He  should  have,  even  at  the  opening  of  His  ministry,  indicated 
the  supersession  of  Jewish  privilege,  is  not  at  all  unlikely ;  but 
manifestly  this  could  not  be  His  usual  or  characteristic  tone,  if 
He  were  to  implant  in  Jewish  minds  the  germs  of  His  wider 
faith.  Had  He  perpetually  employed  language  which  seemed  to 
them  to  disparage  their  most  sacred  traditions  (as  would  have 
been  the  case  had  He,  like  Paul,  reduced  Jew  and  Gentile  to  the 
same  level  before  God),  He  would  have  arrested  His  mission  at 
the  outset.  He  had  largely  to  put  Himself  in  their  place,  and 
work  through  the  forms  of  their  thought.  Primarily,  therefore. 
His  universalism  had  to  be  implicit.  He  did  not  so  much  give 
them  new  religious  terms,  as  fill  the  old  terms  with  a  new  mean- 
ing and  reference.  Hence  it  was  only  after  He  had  at  least 
partly  accomplished  this  in  the  case  of  a  chosen  circle  of  followers, 
and  attached  them  unalterably  to  Himself,  that  He  spoke  openly 
and  frequently  of  the  larger  issues  of  His  Gospel,  and  the  ingather- 
ing of  the  "  nations  "  (ra  IQvy]),  Weiss's  remark  that  these  declara- 
tions about  the  passing  over  of  salvation  to  other  peoples,  and  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  are  to  be  regarded  merely  as  "  prophetic 
threats,"  may  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself. 

2.  We  can  see,  then,  how  unavoidable  it  was  that  a  conflict 
should  take  place  in  the  Apostolic  Church  regarding  this  question 
of  universality.  Jesus  saw  that  if  He  were  to  conserve  the  eternal 
element  in  the  Jewish  religion.  He  must  work  within  its  lines.  He 
broke,  indeed,  with  the  existing  authorities,  but  only  because  He 
maintained  that  they  misrepresented  it.  The  principle  on 
which  He  acted,  as  regards  both  the  teaching  of  His  ministry 
and  the  subsequent  development  of  His   Church,  was  to  sow 


420  Notes  to  Lecture  V. 

germinal  truths  which  could  only  come  to  maturity  through  the 
reaction  of  individual  thought  and  the  enlarging  of  experience 
(see  a7ite,  pp.  110-114).  Therefore,  while  He  did  not  leave  the 
disciples  wholly  without  plain  announcements  of  the  universality 
of  His  mission,  He  did  not  so  emphasise  this  as  to  impair  their 
confidence  in  the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  old  and  the  new 
faiths.  Nor,  while  thus  including  the  "  nations  "  in  His  outlook, 
did  He  give  any  instructions  as  to  the  conditions  of  their  admis- 
sion, though  He  could  not  but  perceive  that  this  was  a  point 
which  would  cause  difficulty  even  to  a  liberal  Jewish  Christian. 

The  consequence  was  that,  after  His  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion, the  Apostolic  Church  held  in  its  heart  a  complex  revelation, 
one  which,  while  essentially  spiritual  and  universal,  was  specialist 
in  form  and  in  many  of  its  associations.  For  a  time  the  parti- 
cularist  element  determined  and  conditioned  the  other.  That 
Christ  was  the  full  and  final  revelation  of  God,  summing  up  all 
that  God  had  previously  disclosed  of  Himself,  was  the  unalterable 
conviction  of  the  apostles ;  and  they  felt  that  in  Him  was  centred 
all  blessing  for  mankind.  But  that  did  not  lead  them  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Gentiles  could  share  the  blessing,  except  by  passing 
through  the  gateway  of  Judaism.^  For  not  merely  was  Christ 
the  Fulfiller  of  promises  vouchsafed  only  to  the  Jews,  but  His 
apparent  example  in  confining  Himself  to  His  own  people,  and 
the  absence  of  any  definite  injunction  from  Him  regarding  the 
equality  of  men  before  God,  combined  to  confirm  them  in  hold- 
ing the  Jewish  condition  indispensable.  Though  this  was  the 
undoubted  attitude  of  the  Church  as  a  whole,  there  is  every 
probability  that  Weizsacker  is  right  in  seeing  in  such  men  as 

^  It  may  be  asked,  If  they  believed  this  —  i.e.  that  the  Gospel,  even 
with  this  limitation,  applied  to  Gentiles — why  did  not  the  first  apostles 
organise  a  mission  to  gain  Gentile  converts  ?  Simply  because  their  primary 
duty  was  to  their  own  countrymen,  the  direct  heirs  of  the  promises.  The 
Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century  believed  absolutely  in  the  commission  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature,  that  it  was  meant  as  much  for  the  heathen 
or  for  Mohammedans  as  for  Germans  and  Scotsmen.  But  they  did  practically 
nothing  for  what  we  call  "foreign  missions,"  because  they  were  wholly  ab- 
sorbed in  saving  the  home  Church,  and  making  the  truth  prevail  within  their 
own  borders. 


N'otes  to  Lect7ire  V.  421 

Stephen  and  Barnabas  a  tendency  to  wider  views  on  the  part  of 
some  of  its  members.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Peter  him- 
self was  sympathetic  towards  the  larger  reference ;  as  is  implied, 
indeed,  by  the  whole  character  of  Paul's  remonstrance  with  him 
at  Antioch  (Gal.  ii.  1 1  ff.).  The  Church  must  sooner  or  later, 
from  the  mere  working  of  the  spiritual  principle  within  it,  have 
been  compelled  to  face  openly  the  question  of  the  relation  of 
Jew  and  Gentile  under  the  Gospel.  That  the  crisis  arrived  as 
soon  as  it  did,  and  that  the  recognition  of  the  direct  appeal  of 
Christ  to  humanity  as  such  was  so  speedily  accorded,  was  due, 
under  God,  to  one  man. 

The  extraordinary  insight  with  which  Paul  grasped  the  essen- 
tial significance  of  Christ  for  the  race  was  rendered  possible  by 
the  very  circumstances  which  at  first  sight  might  appear  unfavour- 
able to  it.  He  speaks  of  himself  as  "  one  born  out  of  due  time," 
because  it  had  not  been  his  lot  to  be  a  witness  of  the  ministry  of 
Jesus.  But  it  was  this  very  fact  which  enabled  him  to  perceive 
what  was  hidden  from  the  first  disciples.  They  could  not  "  see 
the  wood  for  the  trees " ;  their  recollections  of  their  Lord  per- 
petually recalled  to  them  the  Jewish  and  limiting  conditions 
under  which  "  the  Life  was  manifested."  The  accidental  was  in 
their  memory  so  bound  up  with  the  essential,  that  it  appeared 
equally  significant  and  permanent.  But  when  Paul  was  con- 
fronted with  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  that  revelation 
was  already  complete.  In  the  mind  of  Paul  the  Pharisee,  the 
story  of  Jesus  called  up  immediately  both  the  humiliation  of  the 
death  and  the  glory  of  the  resurrection.  The  two  together 
formed  one  whole ;  and  he  abhorred  it.  But  when  the  hour  of 
illumination  came,  when  it  pleased  God  to  reveal  His  Son  in 
him,  he  saw  the  whole  manifestation  at  o?ice  in  the  light  of  its 
culmination.  He  thus  approached  the  earthly  through  the  risen 
Christ.  But  this  recognition  of  the  Crucified  as  the  Risen  One 
meant  simply  that  the  revelation  of  God,  which  hitherto  had  been 
the  privilege  of  Israel,  had  passed  beyond  Jewish  limits ;  for,  as 
it  was  on  behalf  of  the  law  that  Paul  had  been  a  persecutor,  so, 
as  Weizsacker  says,  from  the  moment  he  adopted  his  faith  in  Jesus 
he  ceased  to  believe  in  the  permanence  of  the  law.     The  salva- 


42  2  Notes  to  Lcctttre  V, 

tion  which  he  now  rejoiced  in  did  not  come  to  him  through 
Judaism,  but  in  spite  of  it.  His  conversion  to  Christ  was  there- 
fore his  conversion  to  a  world-wide  faith. 

It  was  not,  however,  by  argument  alone,  but  by  action,  that 
he  forced  the  problem  of  (ientile  rights  to  the  front.  During 
the  fourteen  years  spent  by  him  in  "  the  regions  of  Syria  and 
Cilicia"  (Gal.  i.  21-ii.  i),  far  removed  as  he  was  from  the 
hampering  influences  of  the  Judsean  Church,  he  followed  the 
dictates  of  his  own  conviction,  and  preached  to  Gentiles  as  well 
as  to  Jews.  The  Church  in  Antioch,  which  he  largely  moulded, 
contained  both  sections.  When  this  state  of  matters  was 
challenged  by  the  Judaisers  from  Jerusalem,  and  an  appeal  made 
to  the  mother  Church,  Paul  was  able  to  point  to  a  Gentile 
Christian  community  who  manifested  in  their  life  "  the  fruit  of 
the  Spirit "  as  plainly  as  any  Jewish  believers.  And  it  was  the 
actual  existence  of  such  a  body  of  Christians  which  enabled 
Paul  to  contend  that,  if  Christ  had  granted  them  the  power  and 
joy  of  His  salvation,  He  could  not  mean  it  to  be  conditioned  by 
Jewish  antecedents.  The  essence  of  the  faith  in  Jew  and  Gentile 
was  alike.  Paul  triumphed,  not  merely  because  his  reasoning 
was  right,  but  because  it  was  reinforced  by  facts. 

When  once  the  initial  ceremony  of  circumcision  was  acknow- 
ledged not  to  be  essential  for  Gentiles,  the  beginning  of  the  end 
had  come.  For  a  period,  minor  restrictions  might  be  laid  upon 
them :  for  a  further  period,  the  Jewish  Christians  might  retain 
their  Jewish  observances.  But  henceforth  the  universalism  of 
the  Gospel  practically  stood  confessed  as  "the  mind  of  Christ." 

Cf.  Weizsacker,  Apostolic  Age,  vol.  i.  pp.  92-101;  Harnack, 
History  of  Dogma,   vol.   i.  pp.    88-91;   Bruce,   Apologetics,   pp. 

430-447.  

NOTE  25.     See  p.  183. 

The  apparejit  Antagonism  bctiveen  Nature  aftd  the 
Moral  Life — Sin  and  DeatJi. 

I.  The  material  world,  just  because  it  is  an  intelligible  world, 
presupposes  spirit.     The  regularity  of  its  laws,  the  adaptations  ol 


Notes  to  Lectu7'e  V.  423 

its  several  parts,  and  the  progressive  forms  of  beauty  which  are 
gradually  evolved,  show  that  the  same  rational  power  is  at  work 
there  which  expresses  itself  in  man's  consciousness.  Creation  is 
a  process  in  which  the  beginning  is  only  understood  in  the  light 
of  the  end  :  but  if  the  end  interprets  the  beginning,  it  is  because 
it  is  already  present  i7i  the  beginning. 

There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  this  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion between  matter  and  spirit,  if  man  found  in  nature  only  the 
manifestations  of  a  wisdom  and  goodness  akin  to,  though  sur- 
passing, his  own.  But  he  sees  also  much  that  is  in  direct  con- 
tradiction to  his  ideas  of  justice  and  mercy.  How  is  he  to 
correlate  the  paroxysms  that  sweep  over  the  earth,  carrying 
suffering  and  destruction  to  large  masses  of  sentient  beings,  or 
the  appalling  ferocity  of  beasts  of  prey,  with  the  manifold  marks 
of  beneficence  elsewhere  visible  in  the  physical  universe  ?  How 
can  it  be  said  that  the  same  Logos  operates  and  expresses  His 
will  in  both  ? 

It  is  not  unusual  for  those  who  wish  to  argue  for  "  the  un- 
fathomable injustice  of  the  nature  of  things,"  ^  to  make  a 
catalogue  of  the  destructive  acts  and  tendencies  of  the  material 
or  animal  world,  and  then  exclaim,  '  Is  not  all  this  the  work  of 
a  demon  rather  than  a  God  ? '  But  there  is  not  much  force 
in  a  condemnatory  verdict  w^hich  carefully  excludes  from  view 
the  gracious  and  healing  ministries  of  nature,  and  dwells  with 
microscopic  precision  on  what  seems  disastrous  or  brutal  in  her 
operations.  The  greatest  fact  of  all — the  recognition  of  which 
lies  at  the  basis  of  all  fair  judgment — is  that  nature  is  a  unity, 
and  that  no  part  of  her  system  can  be  seen  aright  unless  in  rela- 
tion to  the  whole.  If  scientific  research  has  demonstrated  any- 
thing, it  is  that  what  we  regard  as  alien  or  maleficent  in  physical 
processes  is  indissolubly  bound  up  with  all  that  conditions  life 
and  health  and  happiness,  and  that  it  is  the  latter,  not  the  former, 
which  is  the  normal  central  tendency  of  things.  The  early  frost 
that   kills    the    budding   fruit,    the   whirlwinds    and   floods   and 

^  Vid.  Huxley,  Romanes  Lecture:  Evolution  and  Ethics.  A  suggestive 
criticism  of  Prof.  Huxley's  position  is  given  by  Prof.  Henry  Jones  in  his 
Inaugural  Lecture,  Is  the  Order  of  Nature  opposed  to  the  Moral  Life? 


424  Notes  to  Lecture  K 

avalanches  that  destroy  human  habitations,  are  the  inevitable 
result  of  laws  whose  constant  operation  makes  the  beauty  and 
gladness  of  the  world.  "  The  same  rules  which  are  death-dealing 
for  an  hour  or  a  day  are  life-giving  for  ever."  ^  The  optimism 
which  averts  its  eye  from  the  occasional  catastrophe  is  not  a 
tenth  part  so  shallow  as  the  pessimism  which,  seeing  nothing  but 
the  catastrophe,  is  blind  to  the  general  beneficence  of  nature  and 
her  ultimate  issues.  Pessimism  of  this  kind  reminds  one  of  the 
man  who,  because  he  was  suffering  from  a  bad  toothache, 
declared  that  there  could  be  no  God. 

Probably  the  most  painful  aspect  of  nature  from  the  moral 
point  of  view  is  that  presented  by  a  vast  section  of  the  animal 
world,  in  which  one  race  by  instinct  preys  upon  another.  We 
shrink  with  natural  horror  from  the  thought  of  the  owl  swooping 
down  upon  the  field  mouse,  or  the  panther  tracking  out  and 
bringing  down  the  reindeer.  Yet  the  revulsion  with  which  we 
contemplate  these  is  partly  exaggerated  by  the  attribution  of  our 
feelings  to  the  suffering  animal.  In  the  first  place,  the  end, 
shocking  as  it  is,  comes  swiftly :  a  sudden  spring,  and  all  is  over. 
Or,  if  the  hunted  deer  perceives  the  enemy  afar,  it  is  often 
paralysed  by  fear  ere  the  fatal  blow  is  struck.  Secondly,  it  suffers 
nothing  from  imaginative  anticipation  of  death.  When  it  escapes 
for  the  time,  it  forgets  the  peril,  and  is  in  no  dread  of  its  recur- 
rence. The  pleasure  it  experiences  from  feeding  and  roaming, 
and  from  association  wath  its  kind,  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
final  pain.  The  instinctive  clinging  to  life  common  to  all 
animals  may  be  scorned  by  the  pessimist  as  a  "  mad  passion, 
working  irrespectively  of  the  individual  interests,  for  the  greatest 
conservation  of  vitality  in  nature " ;  but  it  is  in  reality  the 
best  vindication  of  the  "good  of  living,"  and  finds  its  indorse- 
ment in  man's  ratiotial  affirmation  of  it.  Thirdly,  hateful  as 
the  function  of  the  carnivora  seems  to  us,  it  has  to  be  viewed, 
like  all  the  destructive  forces  of  nature,  in  relation  to  her 
whole  economy.  Through  them  she  relieves  the  earth  of  those 
dead  bodies  which,  were  they  left  to  the  ordinary  processes  of 
putrefaction,   would   fill  the  streams  and  the   atmosphere  with 

^  Marlincau,  Idea  oj  Rcligio)i^  vol.  ii.  p.  91. 


Notes  to  Lecture  V,  425 

poisonous  germs.  The  elimination  of  predaceous  tribes  would 
require  a  total  and  unimaginable  reconstruction  of  the  physical 
universe.  1 

•  It  may  be  contended  that  whatever  alleviations  exist  in  the 
struggles  of  the  animal  world,  do  not  alter  the  fact  that  it  is 
dominated  throughout  by  the  principle  of  self-assertion  and 
rivalry,  which  is  the  very  antithesis  of  goodness  as  we  know  it  in 
man  and  believe  it  in  God.  This,  however,  is  not  an  adequate 
description  of  the  life  of  the  animal  creation.  Cosmic  nature  is 
7iot  simply  "  the  headquarters  of  the  enemy  of  ethical  nature  "  : 
it  has  in  it,  as  Professor  Drummond  and  others  have  shown,  the 
altruistic  as  well  as  the  egoistic  tendency.  Were  it  not  so,  the 
latter  would  speedily  w^ork  out  its  own  destruction.  The  instincts 
which  are  the  physiological  basis  of  human  self-assertion  and 
self-sacrifice  2  are  both  present  in  the  animal  sphere.  But  the 
whole  objection  proceeds  on  the  false  assumption  that  you  can 
apply  a  moral  standard  to  the  lower  animals.  Neither  good  nor 
evil  has  any  meaning  for  them.  These  exist  only  where  there 
are  self-determination  and  ethical  motives.  But  animals  as  such 
have  no  personality.  The  question,  therefore,  whether  their 
existence  is  vindicable  in  a  world  governed  by  God  is  to  be 
determined  by  the  test,  not  of  their  morality,  but  of  their  happi- 
ness. If  it  could  be  shown  that  the  creation  of  any  single  race 
involved  a  preponderance  of  pain  over  pleasure  either  in  their 
case  or  that  of  other  races,  it  might  be  difficult  to  reconcile  it 
with  a  beneficent  Providence.^     But,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  the 

1  See  Martineau,  ut  supra,  pp.  78-97  ;  Wallace,  Bainvinism,  pp.  36  ff. 

2  Self-sacrifice  is  not,  as  is  often  represented,  absolutely  destructive  of  all 
self-regard.  "According  to  the  normal  constitution  of  man,"  says  Prof. 
Harris,  "the  two  principles,  sometimes  designated  the  altruistic  and  the 
egoistic,  are  complemental,  not  antagonistic  and  reciprocally  exclusive.  They 
are  both  included  in  the  Christian  law,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  .  .  .  Man  must  obey  the 
Christian  law  of  universal  love  in  its  large,  roundabout  comprehensiveness, 
uniting  the  egoism  and  the  altruism  as  complemental  manifestations  of  right 
character  in  subordination  to  supreme  love  to  God"  [God  the  Creator  and 
Lord  of  All,  vol.  ii.  pp.  24,  25). 

2  Even  then  it  may  be  doubted  whether  we  would  be  entitled  to  declare 
the  two  incompatible,  inasmuch  as  we  have  no  calculus  for  fixing,  in  a  universe 


426  Notes  to  Lee  hire  V. 

preponderance  is  all  the  other  way  in  the  realms  of  sentient 
existence  around  us.  And  if  the  essential  meaning  and  tendency 
of  the  universe  be  good,  we  are  in  no  position  to  draw  up  an 
indictment  against  it  on  the  ground  of  what  we  term  defects,  yet 
which  even  we  can  see  to  be  in  some  measure  inextricably 
involved  in  the  production  of  the  general  beneficent  result.  We 
may,  indeed,  amuse  ourselves  by  imagining  schemes  of  a  physical 
life  in  which  enjoyment  would  be  unintermittent,  and  the 
capacity  of  pleasure  would  not  imply  susceptibility  to  pain  ;  but 
it  will  ordinarily  be  found  that  we  have  endowed  our  material 
Utopia  with  attributes  belonging  only  to  the  spiritual  and  the 
abiding. 

There  are  those  who,  like  Hugh  Miller  and  Dorner,  believe 
that  the  constitution  of  nature  had  from  the  first  a  teleological 
relation  to  sin  :  that  the  entire  mundane  creation  has  thus  been 
perverted  in  its  development.  Dr.  Bushnell  accounts  for  the 
horrible  monsters,  the  death,  prey,  and  abortion  belonging  to  the 
geologic  eras  long  prior  to  the  appearance  of  man,  as  the 
"  anticipative  consequences  "  of  human  sin.  "  Whoever  plants  a 
state  erects  a  prison,  or  makes  the  prison  to  be  a  necessary  part 
of  his  plan  ;  which  prison,  though  it  be  erected  before  any  case 
of  felony  occurs,  is  just  as  truly  a  consequence  of  the  felonies  to 
be,  as  if  it  were  erected  afterward,  or  were  a  natural  result  of 
such  felonies."  ..."  What  now  does  this  strange  process  of 
deformity,  chronicled  in  the  rocks  of  the  world,  signify  ?  What 
but  that  God  is  preparing  the  field  for  its  occupant ;  setting  it 
with  types  of  obliquity  that  shall  match,  and  faithfully  figure  to 
man,  the  obliquity  and  deformity  of  his  sin  "  {Nature  and  tlie 
Super?iat2iral,  pp.  135,  142). 

I  confess  that  this  theory  raises,  to  my  mind,  more  per- 
plexities than  it  removes.  For  (i)  the  signs  of  animal  mon- 
strosity and  cruelty  in  primeval  times  do  not  convey  obviously  or 
necessarily  to  man  the  sense  that  his  wrong-doing  is  the  root  of 
the  evil,  nor  can  it  be  proved  that  it  actually  is  so.     (2)  The 

governed  by  the  mysterious  principles  of  evolution  and  solidarity,  the  precise 
limit  of  suffering  which  ought  to  be  endured  by  an  individual  or  a  single 
species,  as  a  means  towards  attaining  the  final  end  of  good. 


Notes  to  Lecture  V.  427 

fact  that  the  cruelty  existed  before  he  appeared  on  the  scene, 
instead  of  leading  him  to  regard  the  world  as  shaped  by  the 
divine  forethought  "  to  the  mould  of  his  fortunes,"  i.e.  to  his 
moral  perversity,  rather  suggests  to  him  the  very  distinction 
which  Professor  Huxley  makes  between  the  cosmic  order  and 
the  ethical  nature  that  humanity  has  slowly  and  laboriously 
acquired.  (3)  It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that,  though  it  may 
be  natural  to  erect  a  prison  beforehand  in  view  of  the  felonious 
tendency  actually  existiiig  in  humanity,  it  is  not  quite  the  same 
thing  to  erect  a  prison,  place  man  in  it,  and  then  give  him  a 
choice  whether  he  will  develop  the  evil  intent  or  not.  Such  a 
method  does  not  seem  very  favourable  for  producing  the  right 
decision.  It  may  be  difficult  to  conceive,  on  any  view  which 
faces  the  facts,  how  man  could  be  originally  capable  of  preserving 
perfect  loyalty  to  God ;  but  this  idea  of  a  "  preparation  of  the 
field  "  for  the  moral  transgressor,  however  admirable  as  a  vindi- 
cation of  the  divine  foresight  and  unity  of  plan,  practically  means 
that  every  precaution  is  taken  that  man  shall  fall. 

The  problem  of  animal  suffering  is  one  of  which  no  perfect 
solution  seeims  possible  under  the  conditions  of  human  thought. 
It  would  perhaps  be  too  strong  to  say  that  there  is  no  truth 
in  the  conception  of  sin  as  entailing  on  the  animal  world  not 
only  direct,  but  "  anticipative,"  consequences ;  but  I  believe  that 
the  most  real  alleviation  of  the  problem  comes  not  from  any 
hypothesis  of  this  kind,  which,  even  if  it  were  more  helpful  than 
it  is,  cannot  be  verified,  but  from  such  considerations  as  have 
already  been  adduced  concerning  the  facts  and  character  of 
animal  life  and  its  relation  to  the  whole  economy  of  nature. 

II.  It  is  in  man  that  the  creative  process  finds  its  goal.  Not 
that  that  process,  to  our  eyes  at  least,  is  continuous  in  its 
development.  As  there  seems  to  be  one  new  departure  at  the 
first  appearance  of  life  on  the  earth,  so  there  seems  to  be  another 
at  the  dawn  of  self-consciousness.  None  the  less  these  stages, 
though  separated  by  a  hiatus  which  our  knowledge  does  not 
enable  us  to  fill  up,  are  correlated  to  each  other.  The  inorganic 
prepares  the  way  for  the  organic,  and  the  organic  for  the  rational. 
Man  is  at  once  the  last  term  in  the  evolution  of  nature,  and 


428  Notes  to  Lecture  V. 

different  from  nature,  because  transcending  it  as  a  spiritual  being. 
Seeing,  then,  that  in  him  creation,  so  to  speak,  first  attains  to 
self-consciousness  and  freedom,  are  we  entitled  to  say  that  the 
spiritual  part  of  his  nature,  being  his  essential  characteristic  as 
man,  was  ideally  meant  to  react  upon  and  transform  the  physical, 
so  that  his  fidelity  as  a  moral  agent  to  God's  purpose  would  have 
raised  him  above  those  laws  by  which,  throughout  the  material 
world,  life  and  growth  are  invariably  followed  by  decay  and 
death?  It  is  argued  by  many,  that  as  man  was  made  for  im- 
mortality, so,  had  he  remained  true  to  God,  there  w^ould  have 
been  no  severance  between  body  and  soul  at  any  point :  the 
body  —  being  as  much  a  part  of  his  nature  as  the  soul,  and 
"  its  energies  replenished  from  vital  forces  from  within  " — would 
either  have  been  exempt  from  decay,  or  would  have  only  decayed 
when  "  a  new  and  more  spiritual  tenement  for  the  soul  had  been 
prepared."  1  It  was  sin  that  broke  "the  fair  companionship," 
and  brought  man  under  the  dominion  of  mortality  to  which  as  a 
spiritual  being  he  w^as  not  meant  to  be  subject. 

This  view  unquestionably  labours  under  enormous  difficulties. 

I.  The  conditions  of  organic  life  which  now  prevail  were  in 
operation  long  before  the  creation  of  man.  His  sin  certainly 
did  not  at  the  time  of  its  occurrence  introduce  death  into  the 
vegetable  and  animal  world,  and,  as  Dr.  Orr  says,  there  is  not  a 
word  in  Scripture  to  this  effect.  This  is  practically  admitted  by 
all.2  Are  we  to  suppose,  then,  that  his  body,  through  its  union 
with  an  immortal  spirit,  would  have  been  enabled  to  resist 
those  forces  that  make  universally  for  the  dissolution  of  animal 
organisms?     Would  it  have  been  rendered   impervious  to  the 

1  Orr,  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World,  p.  232.  "That  the  body 
of  the  first  man,"  says  Prof.  Laidlaw,  "could  not  be  immortal  by  its  constitu- 
tion is  implied,  if  not  expressed,  in  the  narrative.  '  Dust  thou  art,  and  to  dust 
thou  shalt  return.'  That  is  to  say,  the  curse  assumes  the  form  of  a  prediction, 
that  in  consequence  of  sin  the  law  of  organised  matter  should  be  allowed  to 
have  its  way,  even  in  the  case  of  man.  .  .  .  Man's  constitution,  even  in 
innocence,  implied,  to  use  the  language  of  the  theological  schools,  not  an 
impossibility  of  dying,  bvit  only  a  conditional  potentiality  of  not  dying " 
(Bible  Doctrine  of  Man,  new  edit.,  pp.  240,  241.  Cf.  Denney,  Studies  in 
Theology,  pp.  97-99)- 

2  See  Laidlaw,  ibid.  p.  239. 


Notes  to  Lecture  V,  429 

chill  of  bitter  winds  and  the  poisonous  germs  that  rise  from 
fetid  swamps  ?  If  it  breathed  the  same  air  as  the  animals,  and 
was  subject  to  the  same  atmospheric  and  meteorological  laws, 
how  could  it  be  secured  against  the  lightning-stroke,  or  the 
destructive  hurricane,  or  the  thousand  accidents  that  violently 
terminate  animal  existence?  It  is  easy  to  imagine  exemption 
from  these  mischances,  and  from  the  discomforts  of  hunger  and 
thirst  and  weariness,  if  the  body  were  itself  transformed  and 
spiritualised;  but  it  would  then  require  a  fitting  .environment. 
To  retain  it  in  its  earthly  environment,  and  then  to  affirm  that 
it  was  enabled  to  extract  from  it  only  what  was  life-giving  and 
beneficial,  is  a  most  improbable  hypothesis.  This  is  not  simply 
to  assert  that  man  is  spiritual :  it  is  to  deny  that  he  is  in  any 
sense  natural,  or  correlated  to  a  material  world.  Of  course,  if  any 
one  is  prepared  to  carry  the  "  teleological "  theory  above  referred 
to  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  in  a  sinless  universe  there  would 
have  been  no  physical  death  either  for  man  or  animals,  he  cuts 
the  knot.  But  a  physical  world  in  which  there  is  no  dissolution 
of  organisms  is  at  best  an  unknown  quantity,  if  it  be  not  indeed 
a  self-contradiction. 

2.  While  it  is  held  that  there  would  be  something  incon- 
gruous in  subjecting  man  as  a  sinless  being  to  physical  pain 
and  death,  he  is  still  left,  on  this  view,  surrounded  by  the  signs 
of  mortality.  The  woods  decay  and  fall,  the  birds  die  of  cold, 
the  crops  which  promised  so  well  are  nipped  by  the  frost.  Those 
whom  he  loves  best  pass  into  the  Unseen.  But  if  his  sinlessness 
would  not  exempt  him  from  these  disappointments  and  bereave- 
ments, why  should  it  be  incompatible  with  physical  mischances 
or  sufferings  ?  The  same  consciousness  of  God's  fellowship  which 
sustained  him  under  the  former,  would  support  him  under  the 
latter.  And  it  has  ever  to  be  remembered  that  the  elimination 
of  sin  would  remove  nine-tenths  of  the  "ills  that  flesh  is  heir 
to."  There  would  still  remain  the  possibility  of  sudden  cata- 
strophe from  without ;  but  death  would  ordinarily  come  as  the 
inevitable  result  of  failing  strength,  and  an  old  age  "  serene  and 
bright "  would  usher  in  the  end.  It  might  have  been,  as  Canon 
Gore  says,  a  physical  dissolution,  but  it  would  have  been  a  moral 


43^  Notes  to  Lcctitre  V, 

victory.  It  would  certainly  not  have  been  what  men  have  known 
as  death,  "  the  overshadowing  fear,  the  horrible  gulf,  the  black 
destruction."  In  all  that  constitutes  its  horror  and  gives  it  its 
sting  (i  Cor.  xv.  56),  in  all  that  makes  it  really  death  for  us,  it 
entered  the  world  through  sin.^ 

The  attempt  to  make  the  immortality  of  man  guarantee  his 
immunity  from  physical  death  necessarily  involves  a  mystical 
transformation  of  his  physical  nature.  It  postulates  a  perman- 
ence and  continuity  of  life  which  the  material  world  in  every  part 
of  it  denies.  "  The  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal  "  ;  and  a 
human  body  is  none  the  less  temporal  that  it  is  united  to  a  spirit 
charged  with  immortality.  When  we  speak  of  it  as  "  replenished 
from  vital  forces  from  within,"  we  are  worlds  apart  from  the  only 
flesh  and  blood  existence  which  we  know  anything  of,  and  which 
is  always  correlated  to,  and  conditioned  by,  its  physical  environ- 
ment. It  then  ceases  to  be  a  natural,  and  yet  it  is  not  a  spiritual, 
body.  Why  should  we  thus  seek  to  obliterate  the  distinction 
which  God  has  clearly  made  between  the  two  spheres  to  which 
man  on  earth  belongs  ?  They  have,  by  His  ordinance,  their 
own  definite  and  separate  tendencies  and  qualities.  The  Bible, 
as  Dr.  Laidlaw  remarks,  "  consistently  represents  man  from  the 
first  as  more  than  animal — as  a  personal,  responsible,  and  God- 
related  creature  " ;  ^  but  this  does  not  in  the  remotest  degree 
imply  that  the  rational  factor  alters,  or  can  alter,  the  essential 
processes  of  the  animal  factor  in  his  being. 

The  miracles  of  Christ,  e.g.^  were  an  illustration  and  a  proof 
of  the  dominance  of  the  spiritual  over  the  material  world :  they 
arrested  or  reversed  the  operation  of  the  lower  physical  law  by 
the  introduction  of  a  higher  and  spiritual.  But  they  did  not 
make  the  processes  of  the  lower  sphere  in  themselves  other  than 
they  were.  He  healed  the  sick,  but  He  did  not  render  the  body 
which  He  restored  to  health  incapable  of  subsequent  suftering. 

^  Athanasius  and  Augustine  both  distinguish  between  mortality  as  the  law 
of  man's  physical  being  and  the  "  death  "  caused  by  sin.  See  the  refs.  in 
Lux  Mioidi,  p.  536.  On  the  Pauline  view  of  the  relation  between  sin  and 
death,  vid.  Jowett's  note  on  Romans  v.  12. 

~  Ibid.  p.  245. 


Notes  to  Lecture  V.  431 

He  raised  Lazarus,  but  the  body  of  Lazarus  was  afterwards  just 
as  subject  to  dissolution  as  before.  The  only  instance  in  which 
there  was  a  real  transformation  of  the  physical  organism,  or  an 
interpenetration  of  it  by  spiritual  qualities,  was  that  of  our  Lord's 
resurrection-body.  But  He  did  not  then  belong  properly  to  this 
world.  He  was  in  a  transition  state,  in  which  He  appeared  only 
for  a  unique  purpose  of  revelation.^  Is  it  at  all  credible  that 
a  similar,  though  lesser,  transformation  of  the  physical  nature, 
neutralising  its  inherent  tendencies  to  exhaustion  and  decay, 
would  have  been  the  ordinary  experience  of  sinless  man  ?  And 
as  to  his  transition  from  the  earthly  life,  is  it  not  idle  to  speak  of 
a  change  analogous  to  that  which  Christians  expect  at  the  coming 
of  Christ?^  For  it  is  one  thing  to  believe  in  the  ultimate  trans- 
figuration of  men  at  the  restitution  of  all  things,  when  the  present 
material  order  has  itself  ceased,  and  quite  another  to  believe  in 
such  a  transfiguration  as  the  normal  close  of  each  human  life 
during  the  continuance  of  that  order. 

The  final  problem  as  regards  man  and  nature  consists  in  the 
union  in  humanity  of  a  soul  that  belongs  to  eternity  with  a 
physical  organism  which  is  a  creature  of  time  and  change.  The 
material  world,  of  which  man  is  the  consummation,  supplies  the 
basis  on  which  his  spiritual  life  is  built.  Why  the  moral  should 
thus  rise  out  of  the  background  of  a  vanishing  non-moral  uni- 
verse ;  why  God  did  not  give  to  the  human  spirit  from  the  first 
a  spiritual  environment,  are  questions  beyond  our  power  to 
answer.  Yet  there  lies  the  root  of  the  entire  difficulty.  But  it  is 
not  to  be  solved  by  mingling  or  confusing  things  that  differ. 

The  whole  creation,  says  the  apostle,  groaneth  and  travaileth 
in  pain,  longing  for  the  new  birth  of  God  (Rom.  viii.  19-22). 
It  is  a  great  poetic  word.  It  assuredly  does  not  mean  that  the 
material  universe  awaits  a  period  when,  while  still  remaining 
material  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  it  will  realise  its  every  promise 
of  good,  but  that  the  material  leans  forward  {aTvoKapaSoKta  t7]<; 
KTio-etos)  towards  the  spiritual  as  its  crown  and  vindication,  con- 

^  See  Lecture  IV. 

2  For  difterent  views  of  this  "transition"  of  sinless  man,  see  Laidlaw, 
z5td.  p.  241. 


432  Notes  to  Lectttre  V. 

tent  to  lose  itself  in  order  to  find  itself,  when  the  better  and 
eternal  world  of  spirits  and  spiritual  environment  is  born.  It 
strives  towards  its  fulfilment  in  the  new  heavens  and  the  new 
earth,  as  the  acorn  may  be  said  to  long  for  its  perfection  in  the 
full-grown  oak.  Christianity  declares  that  the  whole  man,  body 
and  soul,  will  yet  be  emancipated  and  made  perfect ;  but  it  assigns 
that  victory  to  a  state  in  which  the  body  being  spiritual  will  be 
a  fit  companion  of  the  spirit.  To  ante-date,  even  in  part,  that 
serene  time,  is  to  land  ourselves  in  something  of  the  inextricable 
confusion  involved  in  all  dreams  of  an  earthly  millennium. 


NOTE  26.     Seep.  183. 

Human  Sonship  grounded  in  the  Filial  Love  ivJiicJi  is 
eternally  in  God. 

Cf.  R.  H.  Hutton,  Essays,  Theological,  2nd  ed.,  pp.  235,  239  : 
"  I  believe  that  the  revelation  of  God  through  an  Eternal  Son 
would  realise  to  us,  if  it  can  be  adequately  believed,  that  the  relation 
of  God  to  us  is  only  the  manifestation  of  His  life  in  itself,  as  it  was 
or  would  be  without  us — '  before  all  worlds,'  as  the  theologians 
say ;  that  '  before  all  worlds '  He  was  essentially  the  Father, 
essentially  Love,  essentially  something  infinitely  more  than  Know- 
ledge or  Power,  essentially  communicating  and  receiving  a  living 
affection,  essentially  all  that  the  heart  can  desire.  This  is  not, 
then,  relative  truth  for  us  only,  but  the  truth  as  it  is  in  itself,  the 
reality  of  Infinite  Being.  It  is  first  proclaimed  to  us,  indeed,  to 
save  us  from  sin,  strengthen  us  in  frailty,  and  lift  us  above  our- 
selves ;  but  it  could  not  do  this  as  it  does,  did  we  not  know  that 
God  was,  and  His  love  was,  and  His  Fatherly  Life  was,  apart 
from  man,  and  that  it  is  a  reality  infinitely  deeper  and  vaster  than 
the  existence  of  His  human  children.  .  .  . 

"  I  do  not  think  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  faith  in  an 
Eternal  Father  can  either  be  adequately  realised,  as  I  have  before 
said,  without  the  faith  in  an  Eternal  Son,  or  that,  even  if  it  could, 
it  would  fully  answer  the  conscious  wants  of  our  hearts.     AVe  need 


Notes  to  Lectiu'e  V.  433 

the  inspiration  and  present  help  of  a  perfect  filial  will.  We  cannot 
conceive  the  Father  as  sharing  in  that  dependent  attitude  of 
spirit  which  is  our  principal  spiritual  want.  It  is  a  Father's  per- 
fection to  originate — a  Son's  to  receive.  We  crave  sympathy  and 
aid  in  this  receptive  life.  We  need  the  will  to  be  good  as  sons^  and 
to  this  the  vivid  faith  in  the  help  of  a  true  Son  is,  I  think,  essential. 
Such  a  revelation  alone  makes  humility  divine,  rather  than  human  ; 
eternal,  instead  of  temporary  and  finite  j  such  a  revelation  alone 
refers  the  origin  of  self-sacrifice  to  heaven  rather  than  earth.  And 
to  make  humility  and  self-sacrifice  of  essentially  human  birth  is 
false  to  our  own  moral  experience.  We  feel,  w^e  know^  that  those 
highest  human  virtues,  humility  and  self-sacrifice,  are  not  original 
and  indigenous  in  man,  but  are  grafted  on  him  from  above.  This 
faith,  that  from  the  life  of  the  Son  of  God  is  derived  all  the  health 
and  true  perfection  of  humanity,  is  the  one  teaching  which  robs 
Stoicism,  Asceticism,  Unitarian,  and  Roman  Catholic  good  works, 
and  the  rest,  of  their  unhealthy  element  of  pride,  by  teaching  us 
that,  in  some  real  sense,  every  pure  feeling  in  man,  everything 
really  noble,  even  self-sacrifice  itself,  comes  from  above ;  that 
God's  virtue  is  the  root  of  all  man's  virtue  ;  that  even  the  humility 
of  the  child  of  God  is  lent  us  by  Him  w^ho  lived  eternally  in  the 
Father's  will  before  He  took  upon  Himself  our  human  life." 


NOTE  27.     Seep.  187. 

On  the  expires sion  *  God's  Plan  of  the  World' 

When  we  use  the  phrase,  the  modification  of  God's  plan,  we 
are  speaking  obviously  secundum  homitiem.  Professor  Orr  rightly 
says  that  it  is  an  '  abstract '  way  of  thinking  which  leads  us  to  talk 
"  as  if  God  had  first  one  plan  of  creation — complete  and  rounded 
off  in  itself — in  which  sin  was  to  have  no  place ;  then,  when  it 
was  foreseen  that  sin  would  enter,  another  plan  was  introduced 
which  vitally  altered  and  enlarged  the  former "  {Christian 
View  of  God  a?id  the  World,  p.  322).  But  abstract  though  it 
be,  it  is  our  only  way,  if  we  are  to  speak  of  God's  plan  at  all,  of 


434  Notes  to  Lectttre  V. 

representing  to  ourselves  a  real  distinction  in  God's  relations  to 
the  world.  That  distinction  is  that,  while  all  that  happens  is 
included  in  His  government  of  creation,  some  events  are  the  ex- 
pression of  His  will,  and  others  are  the  contravention  of  it.  Both 
classes  of  events  are  overruled  and  made  subservient  to  His 
ultimate  purpose  ;  but  He  is  not  related  to  both  in  the  same  way. 
Certainly  the  existence  of  sin  did  not  come  to  Him  as  a  surprise, 
causing  Him  to  rearrange  the  lines  along  which  creation  was  to 
reaUse  itself.  But  as  certainly  He  did  not  will  it,  did  not  will 
that  His  will  should  be  contravened ;  He  willed  that  created 
spirits  should  have  the  power  to  contravene  it,  and  foreseeing 
their  contravention  prepared  in  redemption  for  its  removal. 

If,  then,  we  mean  by  the  '  plan  of  the  world '  the  detailed 
course  of  history,  we  may  say  that  much  of  it,  like  the  massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew,  is  not  His  plan  at  all,  though  it  is  mys- 
teriously incorporated  with  the  action  of  His  Spirit  and  sub- 
ordinated to  His  end.  Indeed,  the  phrase  'God's  plan'  is 
manifestly  inappropriate  for  expressing  the  relation  which  He 
holds  to  a  world  of  self-determining  beings.  For  it  suggests  God's 
will  or  intention,  and  just  because  it  is  God's  plan,  it  cannot  but 
be  fulfilled,  thus  making  no  allowance  for  the  fact  that,  within 
certain  limits.  He  has  cleared  a  space  for  human  freedom  to 
operate.  1  It  may  be  a  suitable  enough  phrase  on  the  lips  of  a 
hyper-Calvinist  like  Toplady,  who  says,  "  If  God  had  not  willed 
the  Fall,  He  could  and  no  doubt  would  have  prevented  it ;  but 
He  did  not  prevent  it,  ergo  He  willed  it ;  and  if  He  willed  it.  He 
certainly  decreed  it"  {Works,  vol.  v.  p.  242).  But  such  an 
argument,  founded  as  it  is  on  the  attribute  of  the  divine  Power, 

1  Many  thinkers,  such  as  Martensen  and  Ruthe,  have  maintained  that  there 
exists  a  divine  world-plan  only  in  a  modified  sense  ;  that  as  regards  the  ultimate 
end,  the  realisation  of  a  kingdom  of  love,  it  is  unalterably  fixed  ;  but  that  as 
regards  the  persons  who  can  only  be  incorporated  into  this  kingdom  by  means 
of  free  agency  beyond  the  reach  of  foresight,  the  divine  world-plan  is  still 
indefinite.  So  also  Martincau  {A  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  278-280). 
This  view  is  compassed  by  difficulties  as  great  at  least  as  those  which  attach  to 
God's  foresight  of  man's  free  activity.  See  Dorner's  criticism  of  it,  System  of 
Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  ii.  pp.  60,  61.  Cf.  the  discussion  in  Harris,  God  the 
Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  vol.  i.  pp.  136-145. 


Notes  to  Lecture  V.  435 

is  itself  fundamentally  '  abstract '  or  partial.  (Cf.  Mozley,  Angiis- 
tmian  Doctrine  of  Predestination^  p.  343.)  If,  however,  we  are 
warranted  in  using  the  inadequate  word  '  plan '  at  all  in  this  con- 
nection, we  are  compelled,  in  order  to  correct  its  false  impression, 
to  employ  a  further  inadequate  phrase,  and  speak  of  the  modi- 
fication of  God's  plan. 


NOTE  28.     See  p.  194. 

The  Christological  ForuiulcE  of  the  Church  Councils  negative 
rather  tJian  positive. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  consensus  of  opinion  on  this  point 
among  men  representing  different  schools  of  thought. 

"  We  ought  to  remember  that  such  an  attempt  "  (to  define  the 
Person  of  Christ)  "  did  not  originate  with  the  great  body  of 
orthodox  believers,  but  was,  on  the  contrary,  forced  upon  them,  in 
a  manner,  by  the  speculations  of  those  who  differed  from  them. 
And  when  it  is  further  considered  that  the  decisions  of  the  ancient 
Church,  as  substantially  embodied  in  our  own  Confession  of  Faith, 
as  well  as  in  the  Articles  of  other  Reformed  Churches,  are,  as  to 
this  subject,  altogether  negative ;  and  that  no  such  thing  as  a 
positive  explanation  of  the  hypostatical  union  is  contained  in 
them, — we  can  see  no  cause  for  bringing  against  them  those 
charges  of  dogmatism  and  presumption  with  which  they  have 
sometimes  been  assailed.  They  do  not  intrude  into  things  that 
are  unrevealed,  or  affect  a  wisdom  above  that  which  is  written. 
They  simply  apply  to  the  dogmas  which  they  negative,  those 
statements  of  Scripture  with  which  they  hold  them  to  be  incon- 
sistent."— T.  J.  Crawford,  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  pp.  184,  185. 

"  Now  these  decisions  do,  it  is  contended,  simply  express  in  a 
new  form,  without  substantial  addition,  the  apostolic  teaching  as 
it  is  represented  in  the  New  Testament.  They  express  it  in  a 
new  form  for  protective  purposes,  as  a  legal  enactment  protects 
a  moral  principle.  .  .  .  The  language  of  these "  (New  Testa- 
ment) "  writings  is  such  that  I  say,  not  only  that  there  is  nothing 
in  the  decrees  of  the  Councils  that  is  not  adequately,  if  untechnic- 


436  Notes  to  Lecture  V. 

ally,  represented  there  ;  but  that  also,  whereas  the  decrees  of  the 
Council  are  of  the  nature  of  safeguards,  and  are  rather  repudiations 
of  error  than  sources  of  positive  teaching,  the  apostolic  language 
is  a  mine  from  which,  first  taught  and  guided  by  the  creed  of  the 
Church,  we  can  draw  a  continual  and  inexhaustible  wealth  of 
positive  teaching.  The  decrees  are  but  the  hedge,  the  New 
Testament  is  the  pasture-ground." — Gore,  Incarnation  of  the  Son 
of  God,  pp.  96,  97. 

"  Whatever  opinion  the  reader  may  entertain  of  the  decisions 
at  which  the  Church  arrived  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  it  is 
at  least  clear  that  they  were  not  in  the  nature  of  explanations. 
They  were,  in  fact,  precisely  the  reverse.  They  were  the  negation 
of  explanations.  The  various  heresies  which  it  combated  were, 
broadly  speaking,  all  endeavours  to  bring  the  mystery  as  far  as 
possible  into  harmony  with  contemporary  speculations.  Gnostic, 
Neo-platonic,  or  Rationalising,  to  relieve  it  from  this  or  that 
difficulty ;  in  short,  to  do  something  towards  '  explaining '  it. 
The  Church  held  that  all  such  explanations  or  partial  explanations 
inflicted  irremediable  impoverishment  on  the  idea  of  the  Godhead 
which  was  essentially  involved  in  the  Christian  revelation.  They 
insisted  on  preserving  that  idea  in  all  its  inexplicable  fulness  ;  and 
so  it  has  come  about  that,  while  such  simplifications  as  those  of 
the  Arians,  for  example,  are  so  alien  and  impossible  to  modern 
modes  of  thought  that  if  they  had  been  incorporated  with  Christi- 
anity they  must  have  destroyed  it,  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  Divinity 
still  gives  reality  and  life  to  the  worship  of  millions  of  pious  souls, 
who  are  wholly  ignorant  both  of  the  controversy  to  which  they 
owe  its  preservation,  and  of  the  technicalities  which  its  discussion 
has  involved." — A.  J.  Balfour,  Fotmdatmis  of  Belief  p.  279. 


NOTE  29.     Seep.  211. 

TJie  Persojiality  of  God. 

Whatever  categories  we  employ  to   describe   the  Being  of 
God  cannot  fail  to  be  inadequate  ;    but  this  does  not  in  the 


Notes  to  Lecttire  V.  437 

least  imply  that  they  are  not  substantially  true.  Man  is  more 
akin  to  God,  comes  nearer  to  Him,  on  the  ethical  than  on  the 
intellectual  side  of  his  nature.  Goodness  in  man  is  of  the 
same  essence  and  quality  as  goodness  in  God ;  but  the  forms 
of  human  thought  are  not  those  of  the  divine.  Hence  the 
terms  which  best  enable  us  to  realise  what  God  is,  are  those 
which  have  most  of  ethical  content,  and  are  least  speculative 
and  abstract. 

When  we  say,  '  God  is  love,'  that  commends  itself  to  us  as 
a  real  and  worthy  expression  of  His  essential  Being.  It  sug- 
gests to  us  what  is  positive  and  satisfying.  But  w^hen  we  speak 
of  God  as  perso7ial^  we  seem  to  call  up  an  idea  that  is  as  much 
negative  as  positive.  Yet  whatever  limitations  are  involved 
in  personality  are  equally  involved  in  love  :  for  love  implies 
personality,  has  simply  no  meaning  apart  from  it,  and  is  with 
reason  and  will  one  of  its  three  constituent  elements.  Love  is 
called  out  in  a  finite  spirit  by  the  sense  of  its  incompleteness, 
just  as  its  personality  is  only  realised  through  the  consciousness 
of  difference  from  something  external  to  itself.  When,  then, 
we  apply  either  the  one  term  or  the  other  to  God,  we  apply 
it  by  the  method  of  eminence  {^ia  emme?iti(B) — "the  method,* 
that  is,  which  considers  God  as  possessing,  in  transcendent  per- 
fection, the  same  attributes  which  are  imperfectly  possessed 
by  man "  (Illingworth).  Though  it  appears  otherwise,  there 
is  in  such  a  case  no  more  real  reference  to  the  limits  im- 
plied in  human  personality  than  to  those  implied  in  human 
love.  It  is  the  positive  content  of  the  idea  that  is  alone 
retained  and  regarded  as  ideally  fulfilled:  so  that  as  a  matter 
of  fact  human  personality  is  no  more  perfect  personality 
than  human  love  is  perfect  love  {vid.  Lotze's  masterly  dis- 
cussion of  the  problem  of  personality,  Microcosmus,  Book  IX. 
chap.  iv.). 

Nothing  in  theological  literature  is  more  amazingly  futile 
than  Matthew  Arnold's  gay  polemic  ^  against  the  phrase  '  a  per- 
sonal God.'  Had  it  not  been  for  that  lack  of  metaphysical  gift, 
which  he   humorously   rejoiced   in    as    giving    him   an   advan- 

^  See  Lit,  and  Dos^ina. 


438  Notes  to  Lecture  V. 

tage  over  the   '  dogmatism  '   of  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and 
Gloucester,   he    would    have    seen    that  to  deny   personality  to 
God  is  essentially  to  deny  to  the  "  Eternal,  not  ourselves,"  any 
moral    qualities    whatever.      This    is    clearly   put   by   Professor 
Fraser.     "The  conception  of  the  final  Power   as    Personal   is 
alleged    to    involve   a  contradiction  in  terms.  .  .  .  Those  who 
allege  this  objection  to  the  finally  ethical  or  theistic  interpreta- 
tion of  existence  seem  to  include  as  necessary  to  their  idea  of 
personality  what  I  should  exclude  as  irrelevant,  even  when  the 
term   is   applied  to  human    beings,  still   more  to    the  supreme 
moral   Power.     Does  not  the  faith  on  which  life  reposes — the 
faith  that  the  universe  is    finally  trustworthy,   and   that    I    am 
morally  free— put   one   w^ho    experiences    this   faith   in    a    con- 
sciously ethical  relation  to  the  reality  that  is  operative  in  all  his 
experience  ?     Now,  if  the  term  '  person,'  as  distinguished  from 
'thing,'   is   taken    as   the   one  term  which    especially  signalises 
moral  relation  among  beings,  and  which   implies    moral    order 
as  distinguished  from  merely  mechanical  or  physical  order  ;  and 
if  the  universe  of  reality,  in  its  final  principle,  must  be  treated 
as  an  object  of  moral  trust,  when  we  live  in  obedience  to  its 
conditions,  does  not  this  mean  that   it  is   virtually  personal,  or 
revelation  of  a  person  rather  than  a  thing — an  infinite  Person, 
not  an  infinite  Thing  ?     If  our  deepest  relation  to  it  must  be 
ethical  trust  in   perfect  wisdom   and  goodness   or   love   at  the 
heart  of  it — trust  in  its  harmonious  adaptation   to  all  who  are 
willing  to  be  physically  and  morally  adapted  to  it — this  is  just 
to  say  that  our  deepest   or  final  relation   to    reality  is    ethical 
rather  than  physical ;  that /^/-j^^^^/Z/v  instead  of  thingness  is  the 
highest  form  under  which  man  at  any  rate  can  conceive  of  God."  ^ 
Professor  Fraser,  however,  hardly  brings   out  the  full  truth   in 
saying  that  personality  is  the  highest  form  under  which  man  can 
conceive  of  God.     For  it  is  not  only  man's  highest  idea,  it  is,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  a  true  idea  :  i.e.  if  we  could  think  of  God  sub  specie 
(Btcrnitatis,  we  should  find  that  all  that  is  positive  in  our  human 
conception  of  personality  existed  in  Him,  however  much  it  was 
transcended.     And  this  is  so,  because,  to  use  Mr.  Illingworth's 
1  Philosophy  of  Theism  :  Gifford  Lectures,  Second  Series,  pp.  149,  150. 


Notes  to  Lecttire  VI.  439 

words,  "our  anthropomorphic  language  follows   from  our  theo- 
morphic  minds."  ^ 

Now  the  Christian  conception  of  God  as  a  '  society  in 
Himself,' — as  not  a  simple  unity,  but  a  unity  that  includes 
difference, — mysterious  though  it  may  be,  answers  to  these 
ultimate  forms,  personality  and  love.  God's  life  contains  within 
itself  the  conditions  which  lie  at  the  root  of  both,  and  which  in 
human  experience  imply  mutually  exclusive  individualities.  It  is 
in  many  ways  unfortunate  that  the  word  Person,  which  we 
derive  from  the  Latin  Church,  should  be  employed  to  designate 
those  distinctions  within  the  Godhead  which  the  Scripture 
describes  as  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  It  does  justice  to  the 
distinctions,  but  not  to  the  unity  in  which  alone  they  subsist. 
''^Dictum  est  iamen  tres  persoiic^,^^''  says  Augustine,  "  7ion  ut  illiid 
dkeretur,  sed  ne  taceretur."  ^  If,  however,  we  are  to  use  abstract 
terms  at  all,  no  better  word  can  be  suggested.  "  But  we  are 
nearer  reality  if  we  conceive  God  in  the  terms  of  the  Gospels, 
than  if  we  define  Him  in  the  categories  of  the  schools." 
(Fairbairn,    Christ   in  Modern   Theology,  p.  400.) 

Cf.  Illingworth,  op.  cit.  chaps,  ii.-iv.  and  pp.  243-246 ; 
Orr,  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  Wo7'Id,  pp.  iii,  112,  308, 
309  ;  Iverach,  Is  God  Knozvable  ?  pp.  208-233  ;  T.  B.  Strong, 
Manual  of  Theology,  chap.  iv. 


LECTURE    VI. 

NOTE  30.     See  p.  240. 

The  indefi7iable  Eleniejit  in  Christ's  Suffering. 

"  The  statements  of  Scripture,  in  speaking  of  Christ's  suffer- 
ings, are  characterised  by  a  dignified  sobriety.  .  .  .  The  writer 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  when  he  would  commend  Jesus 
as  the  pattern  of  patience,  says  of  Him  simply,  '  that  He  endured 

^  Personality  Htunaii  and  Divine,  p.  214. 
^  Augustine,  De  Trin.  v.  9. 


440  Notes  to  Lecture  VI, 

the  cross,  despising  the  shame.'  Paul,  when  he  would  exhibit 
the  humility  of  Christ  in  its  utmost  depth  of  self-abasement, 
indicates  the  limit  of  descent  by  the  phrase,  '  obedient  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross.'  It  did  not  occur  to  him  to 
say,  '  even  death  spiritual,'  or  '  even  death  eternal,'  or  '  even  the 
death  of  the  damned.'  It  may  safely  be  concluded  that  such 
extreme  phrases  are  not  required  for  a  correct  statement  of  the 
true  doctrine,  and  that  it  will  suffice  to  say  in  general  terms  that 
Christ  suffered  in  body  and  soul  all  that  it  was  possible  for  a 
holy  Being  to  suffer.  This  general  statement  leaves  the  question 
open,  whether  the  personal  holiness  of  Christ  did  not  fix  a  limit 
beyond  which  His  experience  of  suffering  could  not  go,  even  as 
it  set  bounds  to  His  experience  of  temptation.  That  it  did  fix 
such  a  limit  seems  beyond  question.  To  speak  of  the  Holy  One 
of  God  as  enduring  spiritual  and  eternal  death,  is  surely  a  gross 
and  mischievous  abuse  of  terms !  Instead  of  following  the 
example  of  Protestant  scholastic  theologians  in  the  use  of  such 
expressions,  we  ought  rather  to  regard  such  use  as  an  instructive 
illustration  of  the  danger  to  which  the  dogmatic  spirit  exposes  us 
of  wresting  Scripture,  and  manufacturing  facts  in  support  of  a 
preconceived  theory"  (Bruce,  Humiliation  of  Christy  pp.  344, 
345  :  cf.  the  passage  quoted  from  Jonathan  Edwards,  ibid. 
PP-  445j  446). 


NOTE  31.     See  p.  246. 

^  Justitia  ivipiitata  '  and  '  Jiistitia  infusa* 

The  controversy  regarding  the  meaning  of  8tKaiow  in 
Romans  is  now  as  good  as  closed.  It  means  "  to  pronounce 
righteous  "  or  "  to  treat  as  righteous,"  never  "  to  make  righteous." 
It  describes  simply  the  acceptance  as  righteous  before  God  of 
the  man  "that  hath  faith  in  Jesus"  (chap.  iii.  26),  and  in  itself 
contains  no  reference  to  his  real  character  or  actual  righteous- 
ness. That  is  the  precise  exegetical  signification  of  the  word. 
But  this  objective  vindication  or  acceptance  only  applies  to  those 
who   have  the  subjective  condition  of  faith  ;  and  it  is  the  sub- 


Notes  to  Lectttre  VI.  441 

jective  condition  which  is  the  living  nexus  between  acceptance 
and  progressive  sanctification.  In  the  first  five  chapters  of 
Romans  Paul  treats  of  the  objective  vindication  of  the  believer, 
considered  in  itself;  and  in  the  next  three  chapters  proceeds 
to  unfold  the  implications  of  the  subjective  condition  which  has 
led  up  to  that  vindication.  The  distinction,  therefore,  between 
jiistitia  impiitata  and  justitia  infusa^  which  the  Reformed  theo- 
logians so  emphasised,  belongs  essentially  to  the  apostle's 
thought  and  has  a  supreme  religious  value ;  but  it  is  at  best  a 
relative  distinction,  inasmuch  as  the  two  sides  have  no  existence 
except  as  mutually  related. 

"  There  is  an  organic  unity  in  the  Christian  life.  Its  different 
parts  and  functions  are  no  more  really  separable  than  the 
different  parts  and  functions  of  the  human  body.  And  in  this 
respect  there  is  a  true  analogy  between  body  and  soul.  When 
Dr.  Liddon  concludes  his  note  (p.  18)  by  saying,  'Justification 
and  sanctification  may  be  distinguished  by  the  student,  as  are 
the  arterial  and  nervous  systems  in  the  human  body  ;  but  in  the 
living  soul  they  are  coincident  and  inseparable,'  we  may 
cordially  agree.  The  distinction  between  Justification  and 
Sanctification,  or  between  the  subjects  of  chaps,  i.  i6-v.  and 
chaps,  vi.-viii.,  is  analogous  to  that  between  the  arterial  and 
nervous  systems  ;  it  holds  good  as  much  and  no  more — no 
more,  but  as  much  "  (Sanday  and  Headlam,  Romatis^  p.  38). 
But  when  theology  deals  with  Christian  truths  or  experiences  as 
abstract  conceptions,  not  as  concrete  realities  in  "  the  living 
soul,"  it  but  "  murders  to  dissect." 

"  Theologians,"  says  Professor  Stearns  {Evidefice  of  Chtistian 
Experience^  p.  150),  "have  been  wont  to  describe  justification  in 
forensic  terms,  as  a  declarative  act  of  God  by  which  a  new  legal 
status  is  effected ;  and  unquestionably  their  nieaiiing  is  correct. 
But  if  we  derive  our  theology  not  from  scholastic  treatises,  but 
from  the  experience  of  the  Christian  read  in  the  light  of  the 
Bible,  we  see  that  this  mode  of  statement  fails  to  do  justice  to  the 
fact.  The  believer  does  not  find  himself  merely  in  the  presence 
of  a  Judge  who  has  withdrawn  the  charges  of  the  law  against  him  ; 
he  stands  before  a  Father  who  has  given  back  His  favour  and 


442  Notes  to  Lectiu^e  VI. 

confidence.  .  .  .  The  forgiveness  or  justification  of  which  the 
Christian  consciousness  testifies  in  the  first  hours  of  faith  is  a 
personal  matter.  In  it  God  comes  near  to  us,  and  we,  who  were 
far  off  from  God,  are  brought  near  to  Him.  It  is  not  so  much  a 
matter  of  the  divine  government  as  of  God's  personal  love.  .  .  . 
It  looks  forward  so  unambiguously  to  a  holy  life,  is  so  clearly  not 
an  end  in  itself,  but  a  means  to  a  higher  end,  namely,  our  com- 
plete redemption,  that  it  is  impossible  to  regard  it  as  unethical. 
The  prodigal  is  brought  back  into  the  Father's  house,  the  Father's 
kiss  of  forgiveness  is  bestowed  upon  him,  the  ring  is  put  upon 
his  finger  and  the  shoes  upon  his  feet,  the  fatted  calf  is  killed 
for  him,  there  is  music  and  dancing  and  great  rejoicing — and  all 
that  a  new  life  may  be  possible,  with  new  love  to  the  Father, 
new  obedience  and  service."  When  Dr.  Stearns  speaks  of  the 
new  life  as  something  which  this  consciousness  of  forgiveness 
refiders possible,  or  to  which  it  points  forward,  his  'meaning'  is 
right,  but  the  expression  rather  lacks  precision.  The  new  life  in 
its  development  as  an  actual  fact  lies  still  in  the  future,  but  in 
essence  it  is  there  already  "in  the  first  hours  of  faith."  Dr. 
Stearns  makes  this  perfectly  clear  elsewhere.  "  In  the  experience 
of  the  new  life  the  believer  receives  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  and 
knows  by  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  that  he  receives  it.  .  .  .  This 
boon  comes  to  him  through  Christ  as  a  part  of  /lis  union  ivith 
Christ^^  (p.  148,  cf.  pp.  127-130). 

What  is  true  of  SiKaioOi/  is  true  also  of  vloOea-ia  as  used  by  St. 
Paul  (Rom.  viii.  15;  Gal.  iv.  5).  It  denotes  not  sonship,  but 
the  status  or  adoption  of  sonship.  And  yet  this  status  is  no 
mere  external  relation  to  God ;  it  is  rendered  possible  for  the 
believer  only  because  he  has  undergone  the  ethical  change 
involved  in  repentance  and  faith.  I  cannot  follow  Professor 
Bruce  when  he  says  that  the  status  and  the  spirit  of  sonship 
"are  not  only  distinguishable  but  separable.  All  who  are 
justified,  all  who  believe  in  Jesus,  however  weak  their  faith,  are 
in  the  Pauline  sense  sons  of  God,  have  received  the  adoption. 
But  not  all  who  believe  in  Christ  have  the  spirit  of  sonship.  On 
the  contrary,  the  fewest  have  it,  the  fewest  realise  their  privilege, 
and  live  up  to  it."     {Sf  PauFs  Conception  of  Christianity,  p.  191.) 


Notes  to  Lectttre  VI.  443 

Certainly  no  man  perfectly  realises  the  filial  spirit,  else  he  would 
be  sinless,  entirely  obedient  to  the  Father's  will  in  every  detail  of 
his  life.  But  the  surrender  to  God  in  Christ,  which  is  implied  in 
the  weakest  faith,  has  in  it  the  germ  of  the  filial  spirit.  It 
signifies  a  response  of  the  soul  which  identifies  it  with  the  one 
perfect  Son.  If  it  be  not  this,  what  is  it  ?  "  As  many  as  are  led 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  these  are  sons  of  God"  (Rom.  viii.  14). 
Would  Paul  have  admitted  that  there  might  be  some  who  had 
obtained  the  vloOeo-ia,  and  who  yet  in  no  sense  possessed  the 
Spirit  or  were  led  by  it  ?  Dr.  Bruce  has  some  admirable  remarks 
on  the  different  meanings  which  vloOea-ta  bears  in  Paul  and  in 
dogmatic  theology  (pp.  190,  191). 

The  ethical  significance  of  "Imputation"  is  well  stated  by 
Canon  Gore.  "  In  this  truth  of  the  inward  Christ,  let  us  see  the 
explanation  of  a  doctrine  which  often  bewilders  us,  the  imputa- 
tion of  Christ's  merits.  To  impute  the  merits  of  one  person  to 
another,  external  to  him  and  independent  of  him,  would  always 
be  an  arbitrary  and  immoral  act.  .  .  .  Now,  by  new  birth  and 
spiritual  union,  our  life  is  of  the  same  piece  with  the  life  of  Jesus. 
Thus  He,  our  Elder  Brother,  stands  behind  us.  His  people,  as  a 
prophecy  of  all  good.  Thus  God  accepts  us,  deals  with  us,  '  i;i 
the  Beloved' :  rating  us  at  something  of  His  value,  imputing  to 
us  His  merits,  because  in  fact,  except  we  be  reprobates.  He 
Himself  is  the  most  powerful  and  real  force  at  work  in  us.  .  .  . 
For  consider,  God,  who  is  truth,  deals  with  us  according  to 
reality.  He  must  deal  with  things  at  the  last  resort  as  they  are. 
He  cannot  reckon  what  does  belong  to  us,  as  if  it  did  not.  Thus 
at  the  last  He  can  only  '  not  impute '  our  sins  to  us,  if  they  no 
longer  belong  to  our  transformed  characters ;  as  Saul  the  perse- 
cutor's '  kicking  against  the  pricks '  belongs  no  longer  to  Paul  the 
apostle,  '  the  slave  of  Jesus  Christ.'  We  can  be  absolved  then, 
at  the  last  great  acquittal,  only  because  by  discipline  in  this 
world  or  beyond  it,  we  have  actually  had  our  sins  purged  out  of 
us.  Here  in  this  world,  in  order  at  any  moment  to  be  the 
subjects  of  forgiveness,  we  must  really  repent,  which  means  that 
we  really  abjure  our  sins,  and  separate  ourselves  from  them  in 
will  and  intention.     Not  the  best  of  us,  however,  can  hope  to  be 


444  Notes  to  Lecture  VII. 

completely  freed  from  sin  except  very  slowly  and  gradually.  But 
God  deals  with  us — this  is  the  great  truth — by  anticipation,  by 
anticipation  of  all  that  is  to  come  about  in  us,  '  non  quales  sumus, 
sed  quales  futuri  sumus ' ;  accepting  us  in  Christ,  forgiving  us  i?i 
Christ,  and  thus  setting  us  free  from  the  burden  of  our  past  sins, 
as  often  as,  being  really  members  of  Christ,  we  do  really,  in  the 
sincerity  of  a  good  will,  unite  ourselves  to  Him,  and  claim  to  be 
His  servants"  {Bampton  Lectures,  pp.  224-226). 

On  the  general  subject,  see  Weizsacker,  Apostolic  Age,  vol.  i. 
pp.  166-169;  Sanday,  ibid,  passim,  where  both  the  exegetical 
and  the  theological  aspects  are  fully  discussed :  Bruce,  ibid. 
pp.  157-160,  and  passim,  especially  chap,  xi.,  in  which  he 
accounts  for  the  two  phases  of  Paul's  doctrine  of  righteousness 
by  the  apostle's  "  psychological  history." 


LECTURE    VII. 

NOTE  32.     See  p.  262. 

St.  PauVs  Conceptiojt  of  the  Laiv. 

I.  At  first  sight  it  seems  hard  to  harmonise  the  different  expres- 
sions which  the  apostle  applies  to  the  law.  But  the  difficulty 
arises  not  from  any  real  contradiction,  but  from  the  dual 
character  which  in  his  view  attaches  to  it,  and  which  he  regards 
now  from  one  side,  now  from  the  other.  The  law  was  for  him 
the  will  of  God  conceived  as  an  external  authority,  and  expressing 
itself  in  positive  precepts.  It  demanded  everything;  it  gave 
nothing.  Hence  under  its  exactions  man  was  prostrated  in 
helplessness.  But  even  when  most  oppressed  by  his  failure  to 
obey,  he  had  to  recognise  that  obedience  was  due  from  him,  that 
the  injunctions  imposed  upon  him  were  just,  and  in  accordance 
with  his  true  nature,  with  what  he  ought  to  be.  Thus  the  law 
had  to  be  both  abolished  and  conserved  \  abolished  as  a  method, 
but  conserved  in  its  ethical  significance  and  content.  To 
abrogate  it  in  the  latter  respect  was  inconceivable  and  impossible, 


Notes  to  Lecture  VII.  445 

for  it  was  essentially  the  expression  of  the  divine  will ;  to  preserve 
it  in  the  former  was  to  retain  an  impassable  gulf  between  God 
and  man.  But  the  fulfilment  of  both  necessities  was  Christ,  who 
was  the  end  of  the  law  unto  righteousness  to  everyone  that 
believeth  (Rom.  x.  4),  but  through  whom  also  the  law  was 
established  (Rom.  iii.  31). 

Paul  unquestionably  believed  in  this  spiritual  and  permanent 
value  of  the  law  as  regards  its  inner  purport.  Dr.  Matheson 
argues  that  in  the  apostle's  view  "  the  law  was  never  meant  to  be 
a  guide  to  moral  life.  It  was  only  designed  to  be  a  line  of 
boundary  between  the  moral  and  the  immoral,  to  constitute  a 
regiment  of  police  which  should  prevent  the  passions  of  men  from 
breaking  forth  into  deeds  of  crime.  .  .  .  He  certainly  regarded 
the  keeping  of  it  as  a  very  easy  thing,  so  easy  that,  to  his  mind, 
the  achievement  did  not  indicate  any  great  amount  of  righteous- 
ness at  all.  He  says  that  he  himself  was,  'touching  the 
righteousness  which  is  in  the  law,  blameless  '  "  {Spiritual  Develop- 
metit  of  St.  Paul^  pp.  96,  97).  No  doubt  Paul  conceived  that 
the  law  was  intended,  as  all  law  is,  to  check  transgressions ;  but 
inasmuch  as  it  was  a  moral  law,  bearing  on  the  right  relation  of 
man  to  God,  it  was,  however  definite  or  limited  in  its  form, 
infinite  in  its  implication.  When  he  affirms  in  Philippians  that, 
"  as  touching  the  righteousness  which  is  in  the  law,"  he  was 
"  blameless,"  he  is  speaking  of  the  law  from  the  ritual  point  of 
view.  He  had  been  a  Pharisee  of  the  "  straitest  sect,"  and  had 
omitted  none  of  the  observances  imposed,  however  trivial.  But 
even  in  the  days  of  his  Pharisaism  he  did  not  regard  this  con- 
ception of  the  law  as  exhausting  its  meaning. ^  At  the  very  time 
when  he  was  'blameless'  in  his  performance  of  the  prescribed 
ritual  of  duty,  he  was  filled  with  a  haunting  sense  of  restlessness 
because  he  felt  that  the  demand  of  the  law  penetrated  far  beyond 
such  specific  acts.  He  is  again  speaking  of  the  law  from  the 
Pharisaic  standpoint  when  he  describes  the  reversion  of  the 
Galatians  to  it  as  a  return  to  "  weak  and  beggarly  rudiments  " 
(Gal  iv.  9).  It  is  not  that  he  is  thinking  of  the  ceremonial  as 
distinguished  from  the  moral  law,  for  this  distinction  was  not 
^  See  Sanday  and  Headlam,  Romans,  p.  iS6, 


44^  Notes  to  Lecture  VII, 

made  by  the  Jews  as  by  us,  but  he  is  regarding  the  entire  law  in 
its  ritual  aspect.  It  is  the  same  law  which  he  himself  kept  so 
blamelessly.  And  yet  the  other  and  deeper  side  of  it  is  present 
in  this  very  Epistle,  when  he  goes  on  to  say  that  "the  whole  law 
is  fulfilled  in  one  word,  even  in  this,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself"  (v.  14).  How  could  the  apostle  ever  have 
spoken  thus,  if,  as  Dr.  Matheson  says,  his  view  of  the  law  was 
merely  that  of  a  code  for  the  repression  of  crime  ?  He  evidently 
thought  it  something  very  searching  and  spiritual ;  the  keeping  of 
which,  had  it  been  possible  (w^hich  it  was  not  in  the  legal  spirit), 
would  have  brought  true  blessedness.  Therefore,  while  he 
emphatically  declares  that,  if  righteousness  is  through  the  law, 
then  Christ  died  in  vain  (Gal.  ii.  21),  he  also  declares  that  Christ 
died,  so  that  the  ordinance  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us 
who  walk  after  the  Spirit  (Rom.  viii.  4).  See  the  same  contrast 
in  Rom.  x.  4,  xiii.  jo. 

It  is  almost  certain  that  Paul  did  not  intend  by  the  elliptical 
phrase,  "  It  was  added  because  of  transgressions"  (Gal.  iii.  19), 
merely  to  assert  the  commonplace,  that  the  law  was  given  to 
repress  transgressions.  He  was  suggesting  the  much  deeper 
truth,  which  he  develops  so  incomparably  in  the  seventh  chapter 
of  Romans,  that  it  revealed,  and  even  provoked  or  created  them.^ 
And  the  law  had  this  terrible  power  for  him,  by  reason  of  the 
double  character  which  he  attributed  to  it.  Just  because,  while 
it  expressed  itself  in  definite  external  commands,  it  was  itself 
infinite,  there  was  no  end  to  its  progressive  imperatives  (cf.  Jowett, 
Thessalotiians^  Gatatia?iSy  a  fid  Rojiiafis^  ed.  1894,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  256,  279,  280). 

When  the  apostle  dwells  on  the  contrast  between  law  and 
grace,  the  immediate  reference  is  to  the  Pentateuch.  Bishop 
Lightfoot  indeed  maintains  that  V0//05  without  the  article  never 
means  the  Mosaic  law,  which,  he  says,  is  always  6  v6y.o%  (see  his 
note  on  Gal.  ii.  19).  The  context  in  many  passages  makes  this 
doubtful  {vid.  Grunni's  JV.T.  Lexico/t,  ed.  by  Thayer).  Yet, 
however  the  precise  exegesis  may  stand,  the  fact  that  Paul 
employs  the  anarthrous  form  so  frequently  shows  that  while  the 

*  Cf.  Lightfoot,  in  loc. 


Notes  to  LectiL7x  VI L  447 

Mosaic  law  may  be  specially  in  his  thought,  he  takes  it  simply  as 
the  highest  type  of  law  in  general,  i.e.  of  a  system  of  mere 
commands,  whether  these  are  embodied  in  a  code,  or  are  the 
unwritten  dictates  of  conscience  {vid.  Lightfoot,  Ga/atia?is, 
iv.  II  ;  Sanday  and  Headlam,  Romans,  iii.  31). 

II.  The  question  naturally  arises,  How  is  it  possible  to  accept 
Paul's  description  of  the  law  as  an  authority  pressing  down  upon 
the  soul  with  its  inexorable  demands,  when,  as  is  obvious  from 
the  Psalms  {e.g.  ciii.,  cxix.),  there  were  Jews  for  whom  there 
was  no  such  absolute  divorce  as  he  expresses  between  the  law 
and  the  quickening  life  of  God ;  who  delighted  in  the  law  and 
made  it  their  meditation  day  and  night?  Could  the  law,  if  it 
were  divinely  given,  be  intended  to  have  a  purely  outward 
threatening  character,  active  only  in  its  exactions,  and  powerless 
to  give  or  to  inspire  ? 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  apostle's  view  is 
largely  coloured  by  his  Pharisaic  antecedents.  Dr.  Bruce  says, 
"  When  Saul  the  Pharisee  began  to  see  into  the  spiritual  inward- 
ness of  the  law,  through  the  contact  of  his  conscience  with  such 
a  precept  as  'Thou  shalt  not  covet,'  he  knew  that  there  was 
no  hope  for  him  save  in  the  mercy  of  God,  and  he  drew  the 
conclusion :  By  the  law  at  its  best,  as  a  spiritual  code  of  duty, 
comes  not  righteousness  as  I  have  hitherto  been  seeking  it,  i.e.  as 
a  righteousness  with  which  I  can  go  into  the  presence  of  a  merely 
just  God  and  demand  a  verdict  of  approval.  By  the  law  comes 
rather  the  consciousness  of  sin,  and  through  that  a  clear  per- 
ception that  the  only  attitude  it  becomes  me  to  take  up  is  that  of 
one  who  prays,  '  God  be  merciful  to  me.'  The  apostle's  doctrine 
concerning  the  law  must  be  read  in  the  light  of  this  experience. 
When  he  says,  righteousness  comes  not  by  the  law,  he  means 
righteousness  such  as  I  sought  when  a  Pharisee,  the  approval  of 
God  as  pharisaically  coficeived.  This  doctrine  was  an  axiom 
to  the  man  who  wrote  Psalm  cxxx."  ^  How,  then,  did  the  author 
of  this  Psalm  regard  the  law  ?  Not  as  a  dead  inert  thing  inter- 
posing between  him  and  God,  but  as  the  expression  of  the  will  of 
One  who  was  really  on  his  side,  and  not  against  him ;  who  loved 
^  St,  PauVs  Conception  of  CJiristianity,  p.  300. 


44^  Notes  to  Lecture  VII. 

to  pardon  and  restore  the  penitent  transgressor.  He  had  no 
thought  of  a  righteousness  which  he  could  present  to  God  as  the 
ground  of  acceptance.  The  righteousness  which  he  longed  for 
was  m  God,  not  apart  from  Him.  Are  we  to  say,  therefore,  that 
the  law  could  not  have  for  such  a  one  the  condemning  character 
which  it  bore  for  Paul ;  that,  having  no  existence  apart  from  the 
grace  which  was  equally  the  expression  of  God's  essential  nature, 
it  created  no  barrier  which  that  grace  could  not  remove  ?  Was 
Paul's  view  of  it  simply  the  Pharisaic  misconception,  which  he 
retained  and  made  subservient  to  Christian  faith  ? 

Now  a  distinction  has  to  be  made  when  we  speak  of  the 
Pharisaic  idea  of  man's  relation  to  God.  That  idea  implies  not 
only  that  a  man  feels  that  as  a  moral  individuality  he  has 
obligations  under  which  he  lies  to  God,  that  he  owes  God  some- 
thing, but  that  he  can  by  his  own  acts  discharge  the  debt  and 
create  a  claim  to  the  divine  favour.  He  can,  as  it  were,  build  up 
a  fabric  of  good  works  which  endows  the  soul  with  merit  before 
the  Infinite  One.  But  a  law,  obedience  to  which  involves  a 
personal  title  to  reward,  could  not  be  the  law  as  given  by  God, 
inasmuch  as  even  its  "  blameless "  observance  would  in  no 
degree  bring  a  man  into  the  fellowship  of  Him  who  is  All  in  all. 
For  the  prophets  and  the  writers  of  the  penitential  Psalms,  at 
least  in  their  best  moments,  this  was  indeed  an  "  axiom."  Their 
loyalty  to  God's  commandments  was  simply  joy  in  God,  the 
response  of  loving  service  to  the  Source  of  all  good. 

But  what  effect  had  the  consciousness  of  sin  upon  them,  the 
sense  of  their  failure  to  maintain  the  right  relation  to  Him  ?  It 
did  not  create  in  them  the  Pharisaic  notion  of  re-establishing  this 
relation  from  the  outside,  from  a  merely  human  standpoint.  It 
led  them  to  abase  themselves  before  Him ;  but  to  abase  them- 
selves in  hope,  because  He  was  the  All-good.  That  is,  so  far  as 
they  stood  fast,  they  ascribed  it  to  His  gracious  presence ;  and 
when  they  fell,  they  recognised  that  only  by  the  action  of  the 
divine  love  could  the  disharmony  be  removed.  They  threw  upon 
God  the  burden  of  solving  the  problem  of  their  sin,  by  His  forgive- 
ness and  requickening.  "  Hide  Thy  face  from  my  sins ;  and 
uphold  me  with  Thy  free  spirit"  (Ps.  li.  9,  12).     But  though  they 


Notes  to  Lecture  VII,  449 

felt  thus  in  their  higher  moods,  they  never  attained  to  that 
confirmed  sense  of  sonship,  that  perfect  peace  with  God,  which 
is  the  heritage  of  Christian  faith.  They  knew  that  the  problem 
of  their  disobedience  could  only  be  solved  by  God,  and  they 
believed  that  it  ivas  in  some  way  solved  by  Him ;  but  that  did 
not  prevent  them  from  feeling  that  on  the  side  of  humanity  there 
was  still  a  service  unrendered,  and  a  debt  still  due.  One  can 
hardly  express  what  that  feeling  was,  except  in  terms  of  legalism ; 
but  it  was  not  legalistic.  It  was  at  bottom  moral  and  spiritual ;  a 
dim  suggestion  of  the  revelation  given  in  the  incarnate  Son,  that 
while  God  is  the  one  redeemer  and  reconciler,  yet  the  reconcilia- 
tion has  finally  to  be  wrought  out  in  humanity,  in  a  human  life. 
It  could  not  be  more  than  a  suggestion.  Only  through  Christ 
was  the  full  significance  of  sin  realised,  not  only  as  a  personal 
demerit,  but  in  its  organic  character  as  a  dissolvent  of  God's 
moral  government  of  the  universe.  It  was  the  satisfaction  of  the 
need  that  first  revealed  what  the  need  was  in  its  extremest  form. 
None  the  less  there  is  wrapped  up  in  the  moral  nature  of  man, 
and  there  was  involved  in  the  prophetic  thought,  an  adumbration 
of  the  truth  which  in  the  Christian  redemption  alone  is  made 
manifest,  that  salvation  implies  in  a  deep  sense  an  offering  of  the 
human  to  the  divine,  an  offering  which  is  ours  and  yet  not  of  us. 
Thus  for  the  noblest  souls  of  the  Old  Testament  the  law  had 
two  sides.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  not  simply  a  code  of 
threatening  ordinances,  but  a  law  or  revelation  of  God's  will 
which  restored  the  soul,  and  in  the  keeping  of  which  there  was 
great  reward  (Ps.  xix.  7,  11).  On  the  other  hand,  being  con- 
scious that  they  had  failed  to  preserve  this  spirit  of  hearty  loving 
obedience  to  God's  commandments  which  brought  blessedness, 
His  law  had  for  them  a  depressing,  threatening  aspect,  which  was 
only  partially  relieved  by  their  confidence  in  His  forgiving  love. 
In  both  aspects,  positive  and  negative,  it  w\as  a  "tutor"  pre- 
paring men  for  Christ  (Gal.  iii.  24).  On  the  positive  side,  it 
trained  them  in  those  good  dispositions  towards  God,  which, 
though  but  intermittently  cherished,  revealed  to  them  the  joy  of 
His  service  and  led  them  to  long  for  the  full  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God,  only  to  be  reached  through  the  one  perfect  Son. 
29 


450  Notes  to  Lecture  VI I. 

On  the  negative  side,  by  reminding  them  of  a  broken  covenant 
of  love,  and  of  omitted  services,  it  filled  them  with  an  oppression 
which  only  a  completed  deliverance  in  humanity  and  for  humanity 
could  wholly  remove.  In  this  double  way  it  disciplined  them  for 
the  fulness  of  the  time  (Gal.  iv.  4),  when  men  should  serve  not 
after  the  law  of  a  carnal  commandment,  but  after  the  power  of  an 
endless  life  (Heb.  vii.  16).  They  had  their  happy  hours  of 
childlike  surrender  and  their  ecstatic  moments  of  conscious 
pardon  and  restoration ;  but  still  they  remained  haunted  by  an 
ever-recurrent  fear,  children  of  hope  rather  than  of  achievement — 

"  Tendebantque  manus  ripce  ulterioris  amore."^ 

But  such  a  description  only  applies  to  the  more  spiritual  souls 
of  the  Older  Dispensation.  The  mass  of  the  nation  in  Paul's 
day  construed  the  law  in  its  legalistic  sense.  Quite  naturally, 
therefore,  in  his  great  controversy  he  dwells  far  more  on  the 
negative  than  on  the  positive,  spiritual  side.  The  latter  had  no 
meaning  for  a  generation  who  thought  that  obedience  to  God 
meant  human  merit.  Consequently  the  apostle  takes  the  prevail- 
ing conception  of  the  law  and  proves  that  it  ends  in  a  hopeless 
self-contradiction.  But  the  positive  aspect,  though  not  emphasised 
by  him,  is  not  on  that  account  to  be  regarded  as  denied.  It  is 
even  implied  in  his  elaborate  comparison  of  the  Jewish  nation  to 
the  heir  who  is  under  guardians  and  stewards  till  he  arrive  at  full 
age  (cf.  Lightfoot,  Gaiatians,  iv.  1-7  ;  Bruce,  ibid.  pp.  308,  309). 


NOTE  33.     See  p.  264. 

Evolution  a  fid  the  Fail. 

The  essential  truth  contained  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  of 
man  does  not  rest  on  the  story  of  the  temptation  in  the  Garden, 
but  on  the  nature  and  condition  of  man,  as  shown  in  experience 
and  history,  and  especially  as  made  manifest  through  the  life  and 
teaching  of  Christ.     The  narrative  in  Genesis  does  not  touch  the 

^  Virgil,  ./(//.  vi.  314. 


Notes  to  Lecture  VI L  451 

question  of  the  arigin  of  sin  itself;  it  merely  gives  a  representa- 
tion, in  picturesque  forms  natural  to  the  early  stages  of  human 
thought,  of  the  entrance  of  sin  into  humanity.  That  the  details 
of  the  account  are  symbolic,  is  obvious  to  all ;  the  one  point 
worth  discussing  is  whether  the  state  of  innocence  depicted  is 
itself  to  be  regarded  as  historically  real,  or  only  as  the  symbol  of 
the  ideal  truth  of  man's  nature  and  destiny. 

Scientific  discovery,  and  still  more  the  theories  founded  upon 
it,  seem  to  rule  out  the  historical  interpretation  as  impossible. 
On  this,  two  things  have  to  be  said : — i.  It  is  not  likely  that  any 
advance  of  scientific  knowledge  proper,  as  distinguished  from  scien- 
tific speculation,  will  ever  be  able  to  disprove  that  man  may  have 
stood  at  first  in  an  exceptional  relation  of  happy  fellowship  with 
God.  2.  The  value  of  the  speculative  inferences  drawn  from  that 
knowledge  will  ultimately  depend  on  the  degree  in  which  they 
account  for  the  present  realities  of  man's  ethical  life. 

I.  The  Fall  in  the  Christian  sense  means  the  free  choice  by 
man  of  one  course  of  action  when  it  ivas  in  his  power ^  and  would 
have  been  for  his  good,  to  choose  another.  It  can  therefore  find  no 
place  in  the  view  of  those  who  regard  sin  as  a  necessary  condition 
of  man's  self-realisation.  No  matter  how  wrong  disobedience 
may  be  in  itself,  yet  if  it  be,  as  Hegel  ^  maintains,  the  only  means 
w^hereby  the  human  spirit  could  finally  arrive  at  conscious  free- 
dom, then  it  is  only  relatively  bad,  and  is  metaphysically  vindi- 
cated as  part  of  a  whole  of  good.  For  it  is  God's  will  that  man's 
state  should  not  be  always  that  of  mere  innocence,  of  unconscious 
goodness,  but  that  he  should  advance  to  a  condition  of  conscious 
and  resolved  obedience.  If,  then,  the  latter  condition  cannot  be 
reached  except  by  passing  through  the  negative  stage ;  if  man 
can  only  come  to  full  moral  self-consciousness  through  opposing 
his  will  to  that  of  God,  what  is  termed  a  Fall  is  quite  as  truly  a 
Rise.  It  is  as  plain  as  can  be  that  such  a  view  is  totally  incom- 
patible with  the  ('hristian  idea  of  God.  The  very  act  by  which 
His  authority  is  defied  is  represented  as  indispensable  to  the 
fulfilment  of  His  j)urpose.  Everyone,  indeed,  can  see  that 
moral  evil  is  made  in  the  order  of  His  Providence  to  subserve 
^  See  Wallace's  Logic  of  Hegel,  Translation,  pp.  54-6. 


452  Notes  to  Lecttire  VII. 

high  ends  of  good.  But  our  thought  becomes  a  mere  confusion 
when  we  say  that  these  ends  of  good  would  have  been  otherwise 
unattainable.  In  that  case  we  affirm  and  deny  sin  in  the  same 
breath ;  and  the  unavoidable  consequence  is  that  it  is  the 
affirmation  of  it  which  is  gradually  emptied  of  all  meaning.  It 
is  impossible  for  the  human  soul  to  retain  its  instinctive  horror  of 
evil,  or  the  sharpness  of  its  penitence,  if  once  it  is  penetrated 
with  the  conviction  that  without  the  disruption  of  disobedience, 
the  fuller  and  conscious  unity  could  not  be.  To  maintain  this, 
however,  is  quite  consistent  with  the  frankest  acknowledgment 
that  sin  has  been  the  occasion  of  the  manifestation  of  goodness 
in  forms  impossible  in  a  sinless  world.  Where  the  Father's  love  is 
not  rejected  or  thwarted  by  His  children,  it  cannot  reveal  itself  to 
them  in  the  tenderness  of  redeeming  grace.  But  though  this 
aspect  of  love  be  to  us,  just  because  we  are  sinners,  the  most 
resplendent  manifestation  of  it,  we  are  not  entitled  to  say  that  it 
is  absolutely  a  higher  form  of  it  than  that  which  love  takes  for 
souls  that  maintain  the  steadfastness  of  their  communion.  To 
say  this  is  to  contradict  the  revelation  of  the  eternal  Fatherhood 
and  Sonship  in  the  Godhead.  For  the  perfect  love  of  the  Father 
is  only  known  to  the  vSon  who  is  the  pcj'fect  organ  of  the  Father's 
will.  Paul's  consciousness  of  his  past  perverseness  and  of  the 
unmerited  mercy  that  had  visited  him  gave  to  his  devotion  its 
last  intensity ;  but  it  is  against  all  moral  reason  to  affirm  that  his 
sense  of  fellowship  with  God  was  deeper  than  that  which  would 
exist  in  one  who,  like  Christ,  '  did  always  the  things  that  pleased 
the  Father.'  Christ's  life  with  its  curriculum  of  temptation  (see 
Lecture  I.)  is  the  final  proof  that  sin  is  not  the  necessary  result 
of  finitude  ;  nor  the  necessary  condition  of  the  best  knowledge 
and  service  of  God. 

Further,  even  in  those  cases  where  sin  has  been  the  means  of 
educing  good  in  ourselves  or  others,  its  own  essential  character 
remains  unchanged.  It  is  still  sin  for  us  as  much  as  before  it 
was  committed,  i.e.  the  thing  ivJiich  oih^Jit  not  to  be.  A  wicked 
or  selfish  act  is  not  itself  made  less  hateful  because  it  is  repented 
of,  or  because  in  the  rush  of  shame  and  humiliation  which 
followed  it  we  have  welcomed  the  arresting  and  cleansing  mercy 


Notes  to  Lecture  VI I.  453 

of  the  Father.  Many  a  man  has  thanked  God  for  the  imper- 
fection or  misfortune  which  taught  him  courage  or  patience ; 
but  no  one  who  retained  his  moral  sanity  has  ever  blessed  God 
for  the  vice  whicii  was  the  occasion  of  bringing  liim  the  tenderest 
revelation  of  human  or  divine  pity.  How  then  can  that  be  an 
inherent  and  inevitable  part  of  man's  experience  as  God  meant 
him  to  be,  for  which  (even  when  it  has  brought  the  most  blessed 
indirect  consequences)  he  cannot  either  in  this  world  or  the 
world  to  come  give  God  thanks  ? 

II.  The  moral  consciousness  thus  pronounces  with  final 
authority  that  sin  is  in  no  sense  the  expression  of  God's  will, 
however  it  may  be  controlled  by  Him  and  made  to  contribute  to 
the  furtherance  of  His  kingdom.  It  lays  the  responsibility  of  it  on 
the  man  himself,  and  charges  him  with  a  perversion  of  his  free  will. 

But  just  here  a  strange  antinomy  declares  itself.  Take  any 
individual  transgression,  a  lie  or  meanness.  Be  the  temptations 
to  it  what  they  may,  the  man  who  commits  it  can  never  acquit 
himself  of  the  blame.  It  is  his  act,  because  he  voluntarily 
identified  himself  with  the  evil  suggestion.  That  is  the  first 
instinctive  verdict  that  conscience  passes ;  but  the  more  the 
meaning  of  the  act  and  of  subsequent  similar  acts  comes  home 
to  him,  the  more  he  recognises  that  each  of  them  was  not  merely 
an  individual  sin,  but  the  outcome  and  evidence  of  a  sinful 
nature,  of  a  deranged  state  of  soul.  Doubtless  this  deranged 
state  has  been  aggravated  by  his  past  sins,  but  it  was  not  created 
by  them.  It  was  implicit  in  him  at  the  very  beginning  of  life. 
And  if  this  be  so,  he  did  7wt  approach  even  his  first  temptation 
unbiassed;  he  did  not  possess  the  temperame?itum  cEquaie,  the 
perfect  balance  of  nature,  which  would  belong  to  one  who  was 
passing  out  of  the  stage  of  unconscious  innocence  into  that  of 
moral  struggle.  While,  however,  this  natural  bias  to  evil  impaired 
the  action  of  his  will,  it  did  not  destroy  its  freedom.  His  moral 
oblif^ation  remained.  Thus  we  are  forced  to  acknowledge  the 
existence  of  two  elements  which  yet  we  can  never  bring  to  a 
unity.  The  universal  experience  of  the  race,  testifying  as  it  does 
to  this  '  depraved '  tendency  in  humanity,  declares  that  it  is  not 
possible  for  any  man  w^holly  to  avoid  sin,  that  the  perverted 


454  Notes  to  Lecture  VI L 

nature  will  sooner  or  later  assert  itself ;  yet  the  moral  conscious- 
ness refuses  to  allow  sin  m  any  instance  to  be  necessary.  Hence 
it  appears  as  if  that  were  pronounced  at  least  in  some  form  or 
degree  inevitable,  which  yet  in  every  form  is  morally  prohibited. 

Now  it  has  to  be  observed  that  not  merely  the  evil  deed  he 
has  been  guilty  of,  but  the  deep-rooted  bias  itself — which  he  has 
not  created  but  received,  and  of  which  in  part  the  deed  is  the  ex- 
pression— is  felt  by  him  to  be  siiifiil.  It  is  not  a  mere  physical 
defect  which  somehow  or  other  predisposes  him  to  act  wrongly; 
it  is  a  moral  taint.  But  a  moral  taint  in  the  nature  springs,  and 
can  only  spring,  from  the  perverted  action  of  a  free  personality, 
and  as  this  taint  is  universal  in  mankind  it  seems  impossible  to 
account  for  it,  compatibly  with  the  moral  consciousness,  unless 
on  the  hypothesis  that  there  w^as  a  time  when  this  tendency 
did  not  exist  in  man,  when  in  the  exercise  of  a  freedom  which 
was  then  unimpaired,  he  by  a  '  sin  of  will '  caused  this  deflection 
of  nature.  Such  a  view  proceeds,  of  course,  on  the  assumption 
of  the  unity  of  the  human  race,  and  the  transmission  of  moral 
tendencies  from  one  generation  to  another.  If  it  be  objected 
that  God  is  thus  made  responsible  for  imposing  on  the  race  a 
law  of  solidarity  under  which  it  becomes  subject  to  a  dajnnosa 
hereditas,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  solidarity  and  heredity  are  in 
themselves,  properly  speaking,  neither  good  nor  evil,  that  they 
are  simply  the  conditions  under  which  alone  humanity  could  be 
a  moral  organism ;  that  they  are  necessary  for  the  realisation  of 
the  highest  good,  which  they  are  intended  normally  to  subserve, 
and  therefore  render  possible,  in  the  case  of  free  spirits,  the 
greatest  evil. 

"All  I  imagine  that  Christianity  is  interested  in  affirming," 
says  Canon  Gore,  "  is  that  when  the  animal  organism  became 
the  dwelling  place  of  the  human  spirit,  that  human  spirit  might 
have  taken  one  of  two  courses.  It  might  have  followed  the  path 
of  the  Divine  Will ;  and  in  that  case  human  development  would 
have  represented  a  steady  and  gradual  spiritualising  of  the  animal 
nature,  reaching  on  unto  perfection.  It  might  have  taken,  on 
the  other  hand,  and  did  in  fact  take  (more  or  less)  the  line  of 
wilful  disobedience.     And  the  moral  effects  of  this  wilfulness  and 


Notes  to  Lecture  VI T.  45  c 

disobedience  from  the  beginning  onwards  have  been  felt  from 
parent  to  son."  ^  It  may  be  questioned,  however,  whether  Canon 
Gore,  in  speaking  of  a  "germ  of  spiritual  consciousness  "  breathed 
into  the  anthropoid  animal,-  quite  brings  out  the  modification  thus 
necessitated  in  the  purely  evolutionary  theory  of  man's  physical 
descent.  For  if  the  human  spirit  was  really  free  to  choose  either 
course,  that  surely  implied  that  the  animal  organism  into  which 
it  was  breathed  was  in  some  manner  prepared  for  its  reception. 
The  physical  passions  as  previously  existing  in  the  animal  must 
have  been  modified  and  regulated,  or  the  "  germ  of  spiritual  con- 
sciousness "  would  hardly  have  been  likely  to  cope  with  their 
violence.  Miss  E.  M.  Caillard  frankly  accounts  for  the  Fall  by 
saying  that  the  self-conscious  will  in  man  was  "  newly  born  and 
feeble,"  while  other  parts  of  his  "complex  nature,  the  animal 
appetites  and  impulses,  were  stronger  in  proportion,  and  the  will 
succumbed  before  them,  becoming  their  slave,  instead  of  their 
master."  ^  If  these  were  the  conditions  of  his  life,  was  not  the 
issue  a  foregone  conclusion  ?  Power  to  choose  the  right  was  no 
more  than  a  name.  Such  a  picture  of  man's  primeval  freedom 
reminds  one  of  Dr.  Johnson's  definition  of  a  conge  d' Hire  \  "it  is 
such  a  recommendation,  as  if  I  should  throw  you  out  of  a  two- 
pair-of-stairs  window,  and  recommend  to  you  to  fall  soft."  ^  If  that 
freedom  was  a  reality,  it  certainly  involved  the  tet?ij)eraf?ienium 
cequale  or  equipoise  of  flesh  and  spirit. 

But  is  this  equipose  an  irrational  supposition  ?  God's  creative 
purpose  reached  in  man  a  wholly  new  stage — self-conscious  being 
— which  was  the  crown  and  completion  of  the  preceding  natural 
development.  But  the  turbulent  and  savage  passion  of  the  non- 
moral  animal  becomes  a  wholly  different  thing  when  the  animal 
is  endowed  with  moral  perception.  Instead  of  being  any  longer 
the  means  whereby  the  end  of  its  existence  is  realised,  it  becomes 
an  obstacle  to  progress,  and  needs  repression.  The  conditions 
of  happiness  are  entirely  altered.  That  which  in  the  lower 
physical  stage  fostered  the  life,  is  the  very  thing  which  in  the 

1  The  Guardian,  Feb.  17,  1897.  2  /^/^^ 

^  Progressive  Revelation,  p.  77. 

*  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  (ed.  by  Napier),  vol.  iv.  p.  237. 


45 6  Notes  to  Lecture  VII. 

higher  spiritual  sphere  poisons  and  perverts  it.  "  While  every 
other  hving  thing  is  striving  for  its  own  good,  man  alone  is  found 
choosing  what  he  knows  to  be  for  his  hurt."  Can  we  believe  it 
to  have  been  according  to  God's  will  that  man  should  carry  over 
into  association  with  his  newly-given  rational  consciousness  the 
wild  impulses  which,  though  formerly  the  means  of  development 
in  the  mere  animal,  would  be  the  sure  cause  of  his  degradation 
and  misery;  that  that  which  was  normal  before,  should  be  re- 
tained when  it  became  abnormal  ?  Just  as  natural  history  shows 
that  each  species  of  the  lower  creation  has  conditions  appointed 
for  it  that  enable  it  to  live  a  normal  physical  life,  so  analogy 
would  suggest  that  the  human  species  was  at  first  placed  under 
such  conditions  as  would  have  enabled  it,  subject  to  temptation, 
to  live  a  normal  ?norat  life.^ 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  say  that  the  idea  of  a  primi- 
tive state  of  innocence  is  not  to  be  charged  with  attributing  to 
man  at  the  beginning  of  his  history  advanced  intellectual  qualities. 
There  is  not  a  word  in  Scripture  which  gives  colour  or  support 
to  the  well-known  saying  of  South,  that  "  an  Aristotle  was  but 
the  rubbish  of  an  Adam,  and  Athens  but  the  rudiments  of  a 
Paradise."  Whether  sinful  or  sinless,  man  could  only  gradually 
come  into  possession  of  his  powers.  The  effect  which  sin  has 
had  is  not  that  of  obliterating  intellectual  attainments  formerly 
his,  or  of  making  development  the  condition  of  his  life ;  but  of 
rendering  the  development,  which  under  any  circumstances  must 
have  taken  place,  devoid  of  the  completeness  and  harmony 
which  would  otherwise  have  belonged  to  it.  "A  child  who  is 
obedient  and  teachable  and  willing  to  learn,  who  trusts  his  father 
or  his  teacher,  may  be  in  actual  knowledge  as  inferior  as  he  is  in 
size  and  strength  to  the  full-grown  man,  though  the  man  may 
be  wayward  and  wilful  and  self-assertive.  And  yet,  for  all  that, 
the  child  is  in  a  higher  moral  condition,  and  capable  of  a  fuller 
and  truer  intellectual  development ;  for  he  is  in  a  right  relation 
to  truth,  while  wilfulness  and  self-assertion  are  antagonistic  to 
truth  and  impede  knowledge."  ^ 

^  See  article  l)y  Principal  Simon  in  the  Bibliothcca  Sacra  for  Jan.  1897. 
2  Aubrey  L.  Moore,  Essays^  Scientific  and  Philosophical,  p.  63. 


Notes  to  Lecture  VIL  457 

On  the  moral  side  also  man's  perfection  could  only  be  of  an 
implicit  character.  It  might  appropriately  enough  be  described 
as  childlike,  so  long  as  we  remember  that  the  bias  to  evil  which 
underlies  what  we  term  the  unconscious  innocence  of  the  child, 
and  which  will  certainly  in  some  form  express  itself,  did  not  ex 
hypothesi  in  his  case  exist.  If  we  are  to  represent  his  perfection 
to  ourselves  at  all,  it  can  only  be  as  that  of  a  nature  morally 
whole,  with  an  instinctive  love  of  good  and  horror  of  evil.  It  is 
utterly  false  to  say  that,  on  that  view,  surrender  to  temptation 
would  not  imply  plain  and  wilful  misdoing.  For  the  rightness 
or  wrongness  of  an  act  does  not  depend  on  clear  intellectual 
conceptions,  but  on  the  immediate  verdict  of  the  moral  con- 
sciousness. The  breaking  down  of  the  instinctive  aversion  to 
disobedience  really  signifies  a  perversion  of  the  will. 

That  great  difficulties  attach  to  the  conception  of  an  original 
state  of  human  innocence,  I  have  not  sought  to  deny.  Some  of 
the  most  devout  Christian  thinkers  have  felt  themselves  unable  to 
accept  it.  Dr.  Hort  says,  referring  to  the  ninth  Article  of  the 
Church  of  England,  "The  authors  of  this  Article  doubtless 
assumed  the  strictly  historical  character  of  the  account  of  the 
Fall  in  Genesis.  This  assumption  is  now,  in  my  belief,  no 
longer  reasonable.  But  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  remain  a 
divinely  appointed  parable  or  apologue  setting  forth  important 
practical  truths  on  subjects  which,  as  matter  of  history,  lie  out- 
side our  present  ken.  Whether  or  not  the  corrupted  state  of 
human  nature  was  preceded  in  temporal  sequence  by  an  incor- 
rupt state,  this  is  the  most  vivid  and  natural  way  of  exhibiting  the 
truth  that  in  God's  primary  purpose  man  was  incorrupt,  so  that 
the  evil  in  him  should  be  regarded  as  having  a  secondary  or  adventi- 
tious character.  Ideal  antecedence  is,  as  it  were,  pictured  in  tem- 
poral antecedence."  ^  One  who  takes  this  position  may  say  :  '  I 
cannot  see,  in  view  of  man's  relation  to  the  physical  world  and  of 
the  embryo  condition  of  his  moral  nature,  how  it  was  possible 
for  him  to  avoid  sin.  But  that  only  means  that  I  find  the  same 
antinomy  in  his  earliest  experience  as  in  his  latest :  namely,  that 
what  in  some  form  seems  inevitable  yet  is  in  every  form  pro- 
^  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  329. 


458  Notes  to  Lecture  VI L 

hibited.  He  could  no  more  with  the  consent  of  his  moral  sense 
lay  the  blame  of  his  first  sin  upon  circumstances,  than  of  any 
subsequent  one.'  This  attitude  is  quite  compatible  with  Christian 
faith,  provided  we  realise  that  it  is  a  confession  of  the  insolubility 
of  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  man's  sin.  It  is  hopeless  on  this 
basis  to  attempt  a  solution.  No  doubt  it  has  been  argued  that 
if  on  the  principle  of  the  solidarity  of  the  race  we  can  account  for 
the  depraved  tendency  in  men  as  due  to  the  sin  of  their  progenitor, 
it  is  just  as  conceivable  that  in  the  mysterious  purpose  of  God 
the  principle  of  solidarity  may  cover  a  wider  area,  and  that  man's 
fate  is  so  linked  with  that  of  the  universe  that  he  suffers  the  entail 
of  his  physical  descent.  But  surely  it  is  obvious  that  in  the  former 
case  the  sinful  bias  is  attributed  to  an  adequate  (that  is,  a  moral) 
cause,  to  an  act  of  will,  while  in  the  latter  it  is  attributed  to  a 
physical  or  non-moral  cause,  which  could  not  possibly  explain 
the  consciousness  of  human  depravity.  The  postulate  of  an 
original  untainted  freedom  belonging  to  humanity  which  has 
now  been  lost,  is— whatever  mysteries  it  may  involve — the 
only  one  which  even  helps  to  interpret  the  facts  of  moral 
experience. 

One  is  entitled  to  hold,  if  he  prefer,  that  no  solution  can  be 
given  of  the  problem.  "The  plain  truth,"  says  Dr.  Denney, 
"  and  we  have  no  reason  to  hide  it,  is  that  we  do  not  know  the 
beginnings  of  man's  life,  of  his  history,  of  his  sin :  we  do  not 
know  them  historically,  on  historical  evidence."  ^  Christianity  is 
not  so  much  interested  in  insisting  on  the  acceptance  of  the 
traditional  solution  as  in  withstanding  the  denial  that  there  is  any 
problem  to  be  solved,  and  in  opposing  pretended  solutions  which 
really  abolish  sin,  as  it  exists  for  man's  consciousness.  As  Mr. 
Aubrey  Moore  reminds  us,  "We  are  here  on  ground  where 
natural  science  can  help  us  little.  Moral  facts  cannot  be  put 
under  the  microscope."  Could  any  advance  of  scientific  dis- 
covery tell  us  what  the  spiritual  possibilities  of  humanity  origin- 
ally were?  The  facts  and  verdicts  of  the  moral  consciousness 
are  what  they  are,  whatever  were  the  conditions  under  which 
they  arose.  But  if  we  are  to  construe  these  conditions  to  our 
^  Sntdics  in  Theology^  p.  79. 


Notes  to  Lecture  VI L  459 

selves,  our  construction  must  be  such  as  to  render  possible  the 
actual  result^  as  we  know  it  to  be. 

When  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  says  1  that  with  disbelief  in  the 
doctrine  of  a  historical  Fall  disbelief  in  the  Atonement  must 
follow,  he  shows  that  he  simply  does  not  comprehend  the  real 
Christian  position.  Christianity  is  absolutely  committed  to  the 
view  that  sin  is  not  the  only  means  whereby  man  could  have 
intellectually  and  morally  developed ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  has 
impaired  and  perverted  his  development.  All  Christians  hold 
that  man  is  fallen ;  that  every  sin  is  a  fall,  not  a  rise.  Nor  is 
their  persuasion  that  man  needs  redemption  and  renewal,  and 
that  in  Christ  alone  is  he  able  to  rise,  in  the  least  degree  affected 
by  the  fact  that  they  may  have  no  satisfactory  conception  of  how 
it  was  possible  for  him  originally  to  stand. 


NOTE  34.     See  p.  285. 

The  Xaplff^ara  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles :  Functions,  not  Offices. 

Speaking  of  the  two  lists  of  "  gifts  "  in  i  Cor.  xii.  and  Eph.  iv.. 
Dr.  Hort  says  :   "All  this  variation  of  enumeration,  and  also  the 
variation  in  the  form  of  description  (persons  and,  so  to  speak,  things 
being  terms  of  a  single  series),  becomes  intelligible  and  natural 
when  we  understand  clearly  that  St.  Paul  is  not  speaking  at  all 
of  formal  offices  or  posts  in  the  Ecclesia,  much  less  enumerating 
them.     The  chief  reason  why  he  seems  to  do  this  is   because 
apostles  stand  at  the  head  in  the  two  chief  lists,  and  the  apostolate 
of  the  Twelve  and  St.  Paul  was  in  an  important  sense  a  definite 
and  permanent  office.     But  it  was  part  of  St.  Paul's  purpose  to 
show  that  the  service  which  they  were  intended  to  render  to  the 
Ecclesia  of  that  age  was  on  the  one  hand,  as  in  the  other  cases, 
the  service  of  members   to  a  body  to   which  they  themselves 
belonged,  and,  on  the  other,  was  too  peculiar  to  be  included 
under  any  other  head.     What  is  common  in  substance  to  all  the 
terms  of  the  series  is  that  they  are  so  many  kinds  of  partial  ser- 
^  Guesses  at  the  Riddle  of  Existence,  p.  50. 


460  Notes  to  Lecture  VII, 

vice,  and  from  this  point  of  view  it  was  immaterial  whether  there 
were  or  were  not  definite  offices  corresponding  to  any  or  all  of 
these  kinds  of  service ;  or,  again,  whether  two  or  more  kinds  of 
service  were  or  were  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  ever  performed  by 
the  same  persons.  Hence  these  passages  give  us  practically  no  evi- 
dence respecting  the  formal  arrangements  of  the  Ecclesiae  of  that 
age,  though  they  tell  us  much  of  the  forms  of  activity  that  were 
at  work  within  them,  and  above  all  illustrate  vividly  St.  Paul's 
conception  of  an  Ecclesia  and  of  the  Ecclesia." — The  Chn'sticin 
Ecclesia,  p.  160. 


NOTE  35.     See  p.  292 
Unconscmis  Actions  as  the  Sustaining  Power  of  Faith. 

Cf.  R.  H.  Hutton,  Essays,  Theological,  2nd  ed.,  p.  372  ff  : 
"  The  Lutheran  assertion,  that  a  living  trust  in  the  Christ  within 
man  is  the  only  pure  fountain  of  action, — that  this  alone  can  pro- 
duce a  holiness  unstained  by  human  pride, — had  relapsed  into 
a  confidence  in  the  terms  of  a  technical  agreement,  in  which 
Christ  and  men  are  the  contracting  parties.  This  was  the  result 
of  laying  too  much  stress  on  the  conscious?iess  of  the  act  of  faith, 
the  effect  of  putting  a  strain  on  the  inward  attitude  of  the  heart 
which  it  cannot  in  most  men  bear,  and  which  produces  artificial 
reaction.  It  cannot  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  a  large  party 
looked  eagerly  for  a  more  comprehensive  church  which  should 
nourish  the  unconscious  life  of  man,  and  recur  to  action  as  the 
school  of  faith,  instead  of  looking  on  conscious  faith  as  the  only 
holy  spring  of  action.  This  is  the  strength,  I  believe,  of  that 
Puseyite  reaction  towards  the  sacramental  system  of  grace  by 
outward  ordinances.  .  .  . 

"  I  believe  the  true  safeguard  against  Puseyism  on  the  one 
hand,  as  against  Calvinism  on  the  other,  is  to  preach  what  may 
be  termed  the  sacramental  power  of  common  everyday  duty — to 
preach  that  a  real  Eucharistic  grace  goes  forth  from  the  uncon- 
scious action  to  the  spirit — unless  that  influence  is  destroyed  by 
*  receiving  it  unworthily,'  i.e.  by  a  conscious  self-trust. 


Notes  to  Lecttd^e  VIII.  461 

"  Luther  m\is  wrong  in  saying  that  all  pure  life  goes  forth  out 
of  conscious  faith.  Rome  and  the  Puseyites  are  right  in  affirm- 
ing that  unconscious  actions  are  often  the  sustaining  power  of 
faith,  and  that  God  may  feed  us  with  Himself  through  common 
bread  and  wine  taken  in  humble  thankfulness  for  His  incarnation. 
Common  minds,  and  English  minds  especially,  are  not  equal  to  a 
constant  strain  on  their  conscious  relation  to  God.  Many  can 
do  their  duty  who  cannot  do  it  out  of  a  life  of  faith,  i.e.  out  of 
conscious  and  living  dependence.  But  Luther  was  right  in  assert- 
ing that  all  conscious  trust  in  ourselves  is  tainted  with  sin,  that  all 
conscious  attitudes  of  our  moral  nature  must  be  attitudes  of  trust 
in  One  higher  and  purer  than  ourselves." 


LECTURE    VIII. 

NOTE  36.     See  p.  305. 

The  historical  Jesus  as  the  Symbol  or  Example  of  the 
Divine  Life  in  Man. 

In  his  Philosophy  of  Religion,  vol.  iv.  pp.  120,  121,  Pfleiderer 
gives  an  interesting  summary  of  different  forms  in  which  this 
conception  has  been  worked  out. 

"  Nothing,  according  to  Spinoza,  is  essentially  necessary  for 
salvation  but  the  knowledge  of  the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  i.e.  of 
divine  wisdom;  the  knowledge  of  the  historical  Christ  is  not 
absolutely  necessary,  though  it  is  helpful,  because  divine  wisdom, 
though  revealed  in  the  human  mind  in  general,  has  revealed  itself 
in  Christ  Jesus  more  than  in  any  other. 

"  According  to  Kant,  the  only  essential  object  of  saving  faith 
is  the  ideal  Christ,  i.e.  the  ideal  of  God-pleasing  humanity. 
^Jlie  origin  and  the  authentication  of  this  idea  lie  in  human  reason 
itself ;  but  a  visible  form  has  been  given  to  it  in  a  historical  per- 
sonality like  Jesus,  whose  moral  power  so  victoriously  asserted 
itself  against  all  opposition,  that  we  may  regard  him  as  an 
example  of  the  idea  of  moral  perfection ;  it  matters  little  whether 


462  Notes  to  Lecture  VIII. 

he  corresponds  accurately  with  that  ideal  or  not,  and  nothing 
certain  can  ever  be  said  on  this  point. 

"A  sharper  line  is  drawn  between  the  religious  ideal  and  the 
historical  reality  by  Jacobi.  'We  quite  understand,'  he  writes  to 
Claudius,  '  how  everything  man  can  see  of  the  divine,  everything 
that  can  awaken  him,  as  he  beholds  it,  to  a  divine  life,  represents 
itself  to  you  under  the  image  and  with  the  name  of  Christ.  In 
so  far  as  what  you  reverence  in  him  is  that  which  is  essentially 
good  and  divine,  your  soul  keeps  itself  upright,  you  do  not 
humble,  by  the  worship  of  an  idol,  the  reason  and  morality  that 
are  in  you.  What  Christ  may  have  been  outside  of  you,  for 
himself,  whether  the  reality  of  him  corresponded  to  your  notion 
or  not,  or  whether  he  ever  really  existed  at  all,  all  this  can  make 
no  difference  to  the  essential  truth  of  your  idea,  nor  to  the  value 
of  the  dispositions  which  spring  from  it.  What  he  is  in  you  is 
the  only  important  matter ;  and  in  you  he  is  a  truly  divine  being ; 
through  him  you  see  the  Deity,  so  far  as  you  are  capable  of 
seeing  the  Deity  at  all,  and  when  you  rise  with  him  to  the 
highest  ideas,  you  fancy,  and  it  is  an  innocent  error,  that  you  can 
only  rise  to  them  in  him.' 

"  Fichte  draws  a  distinction  in  the  theology  of  the  Church 
between  two  propositions  of  very  different  value :  the  meta- 
physical one,  which  contains  the  perception  of  the  unity  of  human 
existence  with  the  divine  life ;  and  the  historical  one,  which 
amounts  to  the  statement  that  this  unity  first  came  to  man's 
consciousness  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  '  It  is  only  the  metaphysical 
element,  by  no  means  the  historical  one,  that  saves  ;  the  latter 
only  informs.  If  a  man  is  really  united  with  God  and  entered  into 
Him,  it  makes  little  difference  by  what  road  he  reached  that 
point,  and  it  would  be  a  very  useless  and  perverse  proceeding  to 
be  always  going  back  upon  the  idea  of  the  way,  instead  of  living 
in  the  thing.'  'The  one  means  of  blessedness  is  the  death  of 
self-ness,  death  with  Jesus,  regeneration  ;  but  to  know  the  history 
of  the  instruction  to  this  point  contributes  nothing  whatever  to 
salvation.' " 

The  criticism  passed  in  the  Lecture  on  the  Neo-Hegelian 
view  applies  substantially  to  all  statements  like  the  above  which 


Notes  to  Lectiir^e  VIII.  463 

affirm — (i)  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  now  to  verify  the  actuality 
of  Christ's  moral  victory ;  and  (2)  that  the  actuality  is  not  of  the 
essence  of  the  question. 

It  is  often  very  difficult  to  say  what  those  who  take  this 
position  regard  as  the  historical  truth  about.  Jesus.  Fichte,  for 
instance,  affirms  that  He  is,  "  in  a  wholly  peculiar  manner 
attributable  to  no  one  but  Him,  the  only-begotten  and  firstborn 
Son  of  God,  and  that  all  ages  which  are  capable  of  understanding 
Him  at  all  must  recognise  Him  in  this  character"  {^Tlie  Way 
towards  the  Blessed  Lile,  Lect.  vi.).  This  reverential  attitude 
towards  Jesus  is  usually  declared  by  such  to  be  indispensable  to 
the  highest  spiritual  life  ;  but  to  what  extent,  in  their  conception, 
it  rests  upon  fact,  or  is  due  to  the  glorifying  of  the  fact  through 
religious  emotion,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  discover. 


NOTE  37.     Seep.  311. 

Fact  and  Ideal. 

Since  the  days  of  the  Atifkliirufig  in  last  century  there  has 
been  a  tendency  in  many  quarters,  both  philosophical  and 
popular,  to  disparage  what  are  called  '  literal  facts '  in  comparison 
with  '  ideal  truth.'  The  extreme  form  of  it  found  epigrammatic 
expression  in  the  famous  saying  of  Lessing,  "  Contingent  histor- 
ical truths  can  never  become  the  proof  of  necessary  rational 
truths."  ^  The  vogue  which  this  saying  obtained  was  largely  due 
to  the  now  exploded  conception  of  a  'natural  religion,'  which 
each  individual  could  attain  for  himself  by  according  with  the 
laws  of  nature  and  reason.  The  course  of  human  experience  in 
the  past  was  a  thing  of  no  moment  for  his  apprehension  of 
religious  truth.  The  first  thing  he  had  to  do  was  to  rid  himself 
of  the  degrading  conventions  w^hich  society  as  an  artificial  pro- 
duct had  imposed  upon  him  ;  and  then  to  let  his  real  nature 
have  free  play.     On  this  view  history  lost  all  its  meaning.     Why 

^  Cf.  Piinjer,  His/ory  of  the  Christian  Philosophy  of  Religion,   p.  576  ff.  ; 
Harnack,  Das  Christentwn  und  die  Geschichte,  p.  4. 


464  Notes  to  Lecture  VIII. 

trouble  about  it,  if  I  am  able  of  myself  to  discover  what  is 
essential  for  morality  and  the  knowledge  of  God  ? 

No  one  holds  such  a  position  nowadays.  Science  and 
philosophy  alike  have  made  it  impossible,  by  showing  that 
humanity  is  an  organism,  and  that,  like  every  organism,  it  has 
growth  as  the  law  of  its  life.  A  spiritual  being,  such  as  man, 
cannot  be  a  mere  individual :  he  realises  his  individuality  just  in 
proportion  as  he  serves  himself  heir  to  the  inheritance  which 
lies  open  to  him  not  only  in  his  present  environment,  but  in  the 
bygone  experiences  and  achievements  of  the  race.  It  is  strange 
that  Lessing,  whose  best  work  consisted  in  superseding  the 
shallow  conceptions  of  the  Aufkldrung^  and  who  has  shown  in 
his  Education  of  the  Human  Race  the  true  view  of  history  as  a 
development,  should  have  described  historical  truth  as  merely 
*  contingent.'  Human  history  is  not  an  accidental  succession  of 
events ;  it  is  the  gradual  unfolding  of  ultimate  intellectual  and 
spiritual  forces.  And  the  manner  and  form  of  this  unfolding  are 
of  immense  import  for  the  individual.  For  the  development  of 
humanity  is  not  that  of  an  inevitable  natural  process,  but  a 
spiritual  movement  working  through  free  personalities.  Just 
because  these  constitute  new  centres  of  action,  and  differ  in  their 
powder  and  quality,  the  later  are  not  necessarily  higher  or  better 
than  the  earlier.  And  as  a  personality  may  be  much  greater 
than  anything  which  it  immediately  effects,  it  has  often  to  be 
rediscovered  in  subsequent  times,  if  a  valuable  contribution  to 
human  development  is  not  to  be  lost.  Individuals  and  nations 
are  elected  to  special  functions  of  service  for  mankind ;  and  if 
their  message  is  to  be  fully  absorbed,  there  must  be  a  continual 
return  to  them.  This  is  true  in  the  intellectual  sphere ;  but  it 
has  a  double  force  in  the  moral  world,  where  the  problem  is  the 
perso?ial  actualising  of  ideals.  No  man  can  afford  to  be  in- 
different, in  his  ow'n  struggle,  to  the  degree  in  which  ethical 
standards  have  been  previously  realised. 

Yet  it  is  just  this  personal  element  which  is  sometimes 
depreciated  even  by  those  who  have  most  emphasised  the  evolu- 
tionary character  of  human  history.  Take,  for  example,  Mr. 
Wallace's   account  of  Hegel's   attitude   to    Christianity.      "The 


Notes  to  Lecture  VI IT,  465 

greatness  of  a  philosophy  is  its  power  of  comprehending  facts. 
The  most  characteristic  fact  of  modern  times  is  Christianity. 
The  general  thought  and  action  of  the  civiHsed  world  has  been 
alternately  fascinated  and  repelled,  but  always  influenced,  and  to 
a  high  degree  permeated,  by  the  Christian  theory  of  life,  and 
still  more  by  the  faithful  vision  of  that  life  displayed  in  the  Son  of 
Man.  To  pass  that  great  cloud  of  witness  and  leave  it  on  the 
other  side,  is  to  admit  that  your  system  is  no  key  to  the  secret  of 
the  world — even  if  we  add,  as  some  will  prefer,  of  the  world  as  it 
is  and  has  been.  And  therefore  the  Hegelian  system,  if  it  is  to 
be  a  philosophy  at  all,  must  be  in  this  sense  Christian.  But  it  is 
neither  a  critic  nor  an  apologist  of  historical  Christianity.  The 
voice  of  philosophy  is  as  that  of  the  Jewish  doctor  of  the  law : 
'  If  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  nought : 
but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow  it.'^  Philosophy 
examines  what  is,  and  not  what,  according  to  some  opinions, 
ought  to  be.  Such  a  point  of  view  requires  no  discussion  of  the 
'  how '  or  the  '  why '  of  Christianity.  It  involves  no  inquiry  into 
historical  documents,  or  into  the  belief  in  miracles ;  for  to  it 
Christianity  rests  only  incidentally  on  the  evidence  of  history ; 
and  miracles,  as  vulgarly  explained,  can  find  no  reception  in  a 
philosophical  system.  For  it  Christianity  is  '  absolute  religion ' ; 
religion,  i.e.^  which  has  fully  become  and  realised  all  that  religion 
meant  to  be.  That  religion  has,  of  course,  its  historical  side  :  it 
appeared  at  a  definite  epoch  in  the  annals  of  our  race  :  it  revealed 
itself  in  a  unique  personality  in  a  remarkable  nation.  .  .  .  But  in 
the  light  of  philosophy  this  historical  side  shrivels  up  as  comparat- 
ively unimportant.  Not  the  personality,  but  the  '  revelation  of 
reason '  through  man's  spirit :  not  the  annals  of  a  life  once  spent 
in  serving  God  and  men,  but  the  words  of  the  '  Eternal  Gospel,' 
are  henceforth  the  essence  of  Christianity."  ^ 

But  if  the  greatness  of  a  philosophy  is  its  power  of  compre- 
hending  facts,   this  is  surely  a  curious  way  of  comprehending 

^  Most  people  will  be  inclined  to  think  that  Ilegelianism,  instead  of 
assuming  this  impartial  attitude,  has  proved  itself,  by  its  essential  metaphysic, 
the  most  powerful  critic  yet  known  of  historical  Christianity. 

^  The  Logic  of  Hegel,  Prolegomena,  pp.  32,  33. 


466  Notes  to  Lecture  VIII. 

them — by  exclusion.  If  Christianity  is  anything,  it  is  a  historical 
religion :  and  if  you  treat  its  history  with  indifference  (whatever 
view  you  may  take  of  that)  you  are  not  explaining  //,  when  you 
select  certain  of  its  principles  and  show  their  place  in  the  spiritual 
evolution  of  humanity.  The  fundamental  fact  in  Christianity  is 
not  the  truths  taught  by  Christ  about  God  and  man,  but  the 
embodimejit  which  they  found  in  Him,  the  supreme  and  solitary 
character  of  His  personal  life.  Without  the  acknowledgment  of 
this  as  a  reality  in  history,  the  Gospel  records  are  inexplicable : 
and  the  belief  of  it  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  that  Christianity  has 
been  to  men.  If  in  our  view  the  historical  side  of  it  shrivels  up 
as  comparatively  unimportant,  and  we  don't  even  trouble  to 
inquire  into  historical  documents,  what  are  we  doing  but  passing 
by  the  'great  cloud  of  witness,'  and  really  admitting  that  our 
philosophy  is  no  key  to  the  secret?  It  may  perhaps  explain 
what  we  conceive  Christianity  ought  to  have  been,  but  hardly 
what  it  has  been  and  is. 

For  the  interpretation  of  history  there  are,  as  Harnack  says, 
two  conceptions  necessary  :  evolution  and  personality.  And  the 
latter  is  as  important  as  the  former,  above  all  in  the  religious 
sphere.  "  Ein  Christ  erzieht  den  andern,  an  einem  Gemtit  ent- 
ziindet  sich  das  andere,  und  die  Kraft,  das  zu  wollen,  was  man 
billigt,  entspringt  aus  der  geheimnissvollen  Macht,  durch  die  ein 
Leben  das  andere  erweckt.  Am  Ende  dieser  Reihe  von  Boten 
und  Kraften  Gottes  steht  Jesus  Christus.  Auf  ihn  weisen  sie 
zuriick ;  von  ihm  ist  das  Leben  ausgestromt,  das  sie  jetzt  als  ihr 
Leben  in  sich  tragen.  Verschieden  ist  das  Mass  der  bewussten 
Beziehung  auf  ihn — wer  konnte  das  leugnen  ! — aber  sie  alle  leben 
von  ihm  und  durch  ihn.  Hier  stellt  sich  eine  Tliatsache  dar,  die 
dieser  Person,  in  der  Geschichte  fortwirke7id,  einen  unvergleichlichen 
Wert  verleiht  .  .  .  Achtzehn  Jahrhunderte  trennen  uns  von 
dieser  Geschichte,  aber  wenn  wir  uns  ernstlich  fragen,  was  giebt 
uns  den  Mut  zu  glauben,  dass  Gott  in  der  Geschichte  waltet, 
nicht  nur  durch  Lehren  und  Erkenntnisse,  sondern  mitten  in 
ihr  stehend,  was  giebt  uns  den  Mut  an  ein  ewiges  Leben  zu 
glauben,  so  antworten  wir :  wir  wagen  es  auf  Christus  bin. 
'Jesus  lebt,  mit  ihm  auch  ich.'     Er  ist  der  Erstgeborene  unter 


Notes  to  Lecture  VIII.  467 

vielen  Briidern  :  er  verbiirgt  uns  die  VVirklichkeit  der  zukiinftigen 
Welt."  1 

Er  verbiirgt.  A  past  achievement,  which  is  the  guarantee  of 
a  present  spiritual  power  in  humanity,  redeeming  and  renewing 
it — that  is  the  differential  characteristic  of  Christianity ;  and  no 
speculative  rendering  of  the  Christian  faith  can  ever  be  adequate 
which  either  denies  or  minimises  it. 

Matthew  Arnold,  who  was  anxious  not  to  be  philosophical, 
and  succeeded,  tells  us  in  his  emphatic  way :  "Our  religion  has 
materialised  itself  in  the  fact,  in  the  supposed  fact ;  it  has 
attached  its  emotion  to  the  fact,  and  now  the  fact  is  failing  it. 
But  for  poetry  the  idea  is  everything;  the  rest  is  a  world  of 
illusion,  of  divine  illusion.  Poetry  attaches  its  emotion  to  the 
idea;  the  idea  is  the  fact.  The  strongest  part  of  our  religion 
to-day  is  its  unconscious  poetry."  ^  It  may  be  that  for  poetry  the 
idea  is  everything,  but  it  is  certainly  not  everything  for  religion. 
And  if  the  sinlessness  of  Christ  and  the  Incarnation  be  indeed 
poetry,  they  are  at  any  rate  unconscious  poetry  ;  and  the  strength 
which  they  now  impart  will  be  gone,  when  we  all  become 
lUuminati  like  Mr.  Arnold,  and  recognise  them  to  be  poetry. 

The  special  work  of  philosophy,  says  Mr.  Wallace,  is  "to 
comprehend  the  world,  not  try  to  make  it  better  " ;  and  therefore 
it  may  be  quite  beside  the  mark  to  ask  whether,  when  philosophy 
has  disparaged  the  possibility  of  a  divine  "achievement"  in 
history,  it  can  provide  mankind  with  a  substitute  from  the 
sphere  of  the  Ideal.  But  we  may  fairly  ask  that,  if  it  cannot 
create  the  '  ought  to  be,'  it  should  at  least  do  justice  to  what 
'is.'  The  nature  and  the  need  of  humanity  make  it  perfectly 
plain  that  such  a  unique  manifestation  of  God  in  personality 
would  supply  a  spiritual  dynamic  which  cannot  otherwise  be 
found.  On  the  other  hand,  the  evangelical  records  interpreted 
merely  as  historic  docurnents^  and  the  unbroken  experience  of  the 
Christian  Church,  alike  affirm  that  this  manifestation  is  no  dream, 
but  an  actuality.  When,  then,  the  very  idea  of  it  is  scouted  as 
philosophically  impossible,  we  are  entitled  to  say  with  Professor 

^  Harnack,  Das  ChristenUuu  tind  die  Geschichte,  pp.  12,  14. 
^  Essays  in  Criticism,  Second  Series,  pp.  I,  2. 


468  Notes  to  Lecture  IX. 

James,  that  "a  rule  of  thinking  which  would  absolutely  prevent 
me  from  acknowledging  certain  kinds  of  truth,  if  those  kinds  of 
truth  were  really  there,"  is  "an  irrational  rule."  ^ 

Cf.  Iverach,  Is  God  Knowable  ?  chap.  ii. ;  Gordon,  The  Christ 
of  To-day,  pp.  283-295. 


NOTE  38.     Seep.  321. 
The  Verification  of  a  Historical  Revelation. 

Cf.  R.  H.  Hutton,  Essays,  Theological:  "The  best  testi- 
mony we  can  get  for  very  simple  physical  facts  of  any  kind  is, 
so  to  say,  accide?ital  testimony — the  testimony  of  men  who  have 
no  theory,  and  no  wish  to  have  a  theory.  But  what  is  a  true  and 
important  criterion  of  the  value  of  testimony  in  reference  to  very 
simple  physical  facts  that  come  within  the  range  of  eye,  ear,  and 
touch,  can  never  be  legitimately  generalised  into  a  criterion  of 
the  general  evide?ice  of  a  complex,  spiritual,  moral,  and  physical 
event.  Were  we  as  a  rule  to  mistrust  the  testimony  of  persons 
to  events  which  could  be  proved  to  have  been  expected,  feared, 
or  hoped  for  by  them  beforehand,  we  should,  in  fact,  often  doubt 
events  because  they  were  probable." 

See  his  whole  discussion  of  the  question  (2nd  ed.,  pp.  223- 
229),  which  is  a  fine  example  of  penetrative  analysis. 


LECTURE    IX. 

NOTE  39.     See  p.  355. 

Unconscious  Faith. 

Dr.  Hort's  biography  contains  an  interesting  series  of  letters 
which  he  wrote  to  an  Oxford  undergraduate  who  had  asked  for 
help  in  difficulties  suggested  by  the  Thirty-nine  Articles. 

"In    Article    XIII.,"   he   writes,    "nothing    is    said    about 
*  The  Will  to  Believe,  p.  28,  by  William  James,  M,D.,  LL.D.,  Ilaivard. 


Notes  to  Lecture  IX.  469 

*  conscious '  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  I  do  not  see  why  we  may 
not  read  the  Article  in  the  light  of  such  passages  as  Matt.  xxv. 
34-40;  Rom.  ii.  14-16.  What  is  fully  true  in  the  case  of 
conscious  and  explicit  faith  may  well  be  true  in  lesser  degrees 
for  lower  forms  of  faith.  .  .  . 

"The  principle  underlying  Article  XIII.  seems  to  me  to  be 
this,  that  there  are  not  two  totally  different  modes  of  access  to 
God  for  men :  faith  for  Christians,  meritorious  performance  for 
non-Christians.  There  is  but  one  mode  of  access,  faith;  and 
but  one  perfect,  and,  as  it  were,  normal  faith,  that  which  rests  on 
the  revelation  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  faith  itself,  not 
being  an  intellectual  assent  to  propositions,  but  an  attitude  of 
heart  and  mind,  is  present  in  a  more  or  less  rudimentary  state  in 
every  upward  effort  and  aspiration  of  men.  Doubtless  the  faith 
of  non-Christians  (and  much  of  the  faith  of  Christians,  for  that 
matter)  is  not  in  the  strict  sense  '  faith  in  Jesus  Christ ' ;  and 
therefore  I  wish  the  Article  were  otherwise  worded.  But  such 
faith,  when  ripened,  grows  into  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ ;  as 
also  it  finds  its  rational  justification  in  the  revelation  made 
through  Him.  Practically  the  principle  of  the  Article  teaches 
us  to  regard  all  the  good  there  is  in  the  world  as  what  one  may 
call  imperfect  Christianity^  not  as  something  essentially  different, 
requiring,  so  to  speak,  to  be  dealt  with  by  God  in  a  wholly 
different  manner.  Of  course  I  take  for  granted  that  acceptance 
of  the  Christian  creed  is  not  identical  with  Christian  faith,  but 
only  the  necessary  condition  of  its  existence  in  the  highest  or 
strictly  Christian  form." — Life  and  Letters  of  F.J.  A.  LLort^  pp. 
332,  337- 


NOTE  40.     See  p.  359. 

Contrast  of  Christian  Society  as  it  now  is,  ivitJi  the 
L  ife  of  tJie  New  Testament. 

No  one  has  stated  this  contrast,  or  brought  out  its  real 
significance,  with  deeper  insight  than  Dean  Church,  Gifts  of 
Civiiisation. 


4-7 o  Notes  to  Lecttti^e  IX. 

"  Christianity  has  been  not  only  an  eminently  social  religion, 
but  a  liberal  religion.  It  has  been  so,  not  merely  from  slack 
indifference,  but  with  its  eyes  open,  and  with  deliberate  reason 
given  to  itself  for  what  it  did.  It  has  made  large  allowance  for 
the  varieties  of  character.  It  has  naturalised  and  adopted  in  the 
boldest  way  (I  say  this,  looking  at  the  general  result  of  what  has 
come  to  pass,  and  not  forgetting  either  narrow  fears  and  jealousies, 
or  very  terrible  abuses  and  mischiefs),  art,  literature,  science.  It 
has  claimed  to  have  a  charm  which  could  take  the  sting  out  of 
them.  We  educate  by  the  classics,  and  are  not  afraid  of  Shake- 
speare. We  may  say,  and  say  truly,  that  where  there  is  society, 
these  things  must  be ;  but  Christian  society  began  in  the  life  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  they  are  not  there.  In  all  directions 
we  see  instances  of  the  necessities  of  things  enforcing  an  enlarged 
interpretation  of  its  language ;  and  we  believe  that  the  common- 
sense  and  instinct  of  Christians  have,  on  the  whole,  caught  its 
true  meaning.  .  .  .  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  once  taken 
very  literally :  it  is  easy  to  say,  take  it  literally  still,  with  the 
Poor  Men  of  Lyons  or  the  Moravians ;  only  then  you  sacrifice 
society.  .  .  . 

"  Is  then  the  history  of  Christian  society  the  history  of  a  great 
evasion  ?  We  Christians  of  this  day  believe  that  in  its  earlier 
and  later  forms  it  is  one  and  the  same ;  that  the  later  has  not 
forfeited  the  mind  and  the  hopes  of  the  earlier.  Unless  we  are 
apostates  without  knowing  it  and  meaning  it,  we  accept  the 
difference  as  being,  in  spite  of  enormous  and  manifest  faults,  the 
result  of  natural  and  intended  changes.     Are  we  mistaken  ?  .  .  . 

"  If  we  have  anything  to  guide  us  as  to  God's  will  in  the  facts 
of  the  world, — if  we  see  His  providence  in  the  tendencies  and 
conditions  amid  which  we  live,  and  believe  that  in  them  He  is 
our  teacher  and  interpreter,  we  must  believe  that  social  order, 
with  its  elementary  laws,  its  necessary  incidents  and  pursuits,  is 
(iod's  will  for  this  present  world.  He  meant  us  to  live  in  this 
world.  And  for  this  world, — unless  there  is  nothing  more  to  be 
done  than  to  wait  for  its  ending, — what  we  call  society,  the  rule 
of  law,  the  employments  of  business,  the  cultivation  of  our  in- 
finite resources,  the  embodiment  of  public  force  and  power,  the 


Notes  to  Lecttu^e  IX.  471 

increase  of  wealtli,  the  continued  improvement  of  social  arrange- 
ments— all  this  is  indispensable.  There  is  no  standing  still  in 
these  matters ;  the  only  other  alternative  is  drifting  back  into 
confusion  and  violence.  If  the  necessities  of  our  condition,  with 
all  the  light  thrown  on  them  by  long  experience,  are  no  evidence 
of  God's  purposes,  we  are  indeed  in  darkness ;  if  they  are,  it  is 
plain  that  man,  both  the  individual  and  the  race,  has  a  career 
here,  that  he  has  been  furnished  for  it,  I  need  not  say  how 
amply,  and  w^as  meant  to  fulfil  it.  It  is  God's  plan  that  in  spite 
of  the  vanity  and  shortness  of  life,  which  is  no  Christian  discovery 
(it  was  a  matter  for  irony  or  despair  long  before  Christianity), 
and  in  spite  of  that  disproportionateness  to  eternity  which  the 
Gospel  has  disclosed  to  us,  men  should  yet  have  to  show  what 
they  are,  and  what  is  in  them  to  do;  should  develop  and  cultivate 
their  w^onderful  powers  ;  should  become  something  proportionate 
to  their  endowments  for  this  life,  and  push  to  their  full  limit  the 
employments  which  come  to  their  hand.  The  Church  by  its 
practice,  its  greatest  writers  by  their  philosophy  and  theories, 
have  sanctioned  this  view  of  the  use  and  divine  appointment  ot 
the  present  life.  This  natural  order  of  things  was  once  inter- 
rupted. It  was  when  Christ  came  to  begin  society  anew.  But 
as  soon  as  the  first  great  shock  was  over,  which  accompanied  a 
Gospel  of  which  the  centre  was  the  Cross  and  Resurrection,  it 
became  plain  that  the  mission  of  the  Church  was  not  to  remain 
outside  of  and  apart  from  society,  but  to  absorb  it  and  act  on  it 
in  endless  ways ;  that  Christianity  was  calculated  and  intended 
for  even  a  wider  purpose  than  had  been  prominently  disclosed 
at  first." — Pp.  34-39. 


APPENDIX.! 

Did  Jesus  Pray  with  His  Disciples  ? 

The  negative  view  stated  in  the  first  Lecture  evidently  surprised 
many  readers,  but,  as  I  pointed  out  in  Note  3  (p.  385),  it  had 
not  been  without  advocates.  It  has,  however,  been  strenuously 
criticised  by  the  late  Professor  A,  B.  Bruce  in  a  reply  with  which 
he  honoured  me.  In  the  course  of  my  argument  I  put  the  follow- 
ing alternative  (p.  25) :  "If  Jesus  practised  family  prayer  as  the 
head  of  a  household,  either  it  contained  or  it  did  not  contain 
the  element  of  confession.  If  it  did,  it  gave  the  disciples  a  false 
impression  of  Ifis  character ;  if  it  did  not,  it  led  to  a  false  idea 
of  their  oivn.^''  Dr.  Bruce  quotes  these  words,  and  adds  that 
escape  from  this  "apparently  formidable  dilemma"  is  not  im- 
possible. "The  first  horn  is  the  weak  one.  It  assumes  that 
Jesus,  out  of  regard  to  His  sinlessness,  was  under  the  necessity 
of  shaping  His  conduct  so  that  no  misunderstanding  as  to  His 
character  should  arise.  If  that  were  indeed  so,  then  with  rever- 
ence it  may  be  said  that  He  was  placed  in  a  very  unhappy  pre- 
dicament. Practically  it  amounted  to  this,  that  'sinlessness' 
doomed  Him  to  an  aloofness  which  meant  death  to  fraternity, 
...  to  comrade-like  relations  with  persons  of  evil  repute,  to 
crucifixion  between  two  thieves ;  in  one  word,  death  to  love, 
which  is  the  fulfilling  of  all  righteousness.  .  .  .  Why  should  we 
doubt  that  Jesus  not  only  acted  on  the  Messianic  motto,  'In 
the  midst  of  the  Church  will  I  sing  praise  unto  Thee,'  but 
joined  habitually  with  His  friends  in  prayer  also,  even  in  prayer 
containing  confession  of  sin  ?  "  ^ 

^  This  Appendix  is  substantially  a  reprint  of  an  Article  contributed  by  me 

to  the  Expository  Times  for  May  1900. 

-  Extosiior,  March  1S98,  "The  Baptism  of  Jesus,"  pp.  196,  197. 

472 


Appendix  473 

The  consequences  which  Dr.  Bruce  declares  to  be  involved 
in  the  view  from  which  he  dissents  are  sufficiently  alarming,  and 
have  the  aspect  of  a  conclusive  rediictio  ad  absiirdiim.  But  they 
are  really  founded  on  a  confusion.  The  "  impression  "  produced 
by  Jesus  in  those  instances  when  He  associated  with  publicans 
and  sinners  was  of  a  radically  different  character  from  that  which 
would  have  been  created  by  His  uniting  with  others  in  the  con- 
fession of  sin.  In  the  former  case  the  misunderstanding  was  due 
to  the  incapacity  of  the  observers  to  appreciate  His  conduct.  Mis- 
conceptions of  this  kind  are  unavoidable  in  human  society,  and 
the  higher  any  soul  rises  above  the  common  level  it  is  the  more 
exposed  to  them.  It  has  to  defy  conventional  standards  of 
thought  and  life  in  fidelity  to  its  own  better  vision,  and  thus  at 
every  stage  lays  itself  open  to  erroneous  constructions.  But  it 
remains  true  to  itself.  Its  conduct,  however  misinterpreted  by 
the  ignorant  or  selfish,  is  the  faithful  expi'ession  of  its  character ; 
and  the  misconceptions  vanish  in  proportion  as  its  neighbours 
approximate  to  its  type.  The  intercourse  of  Jesus  with  His 
followers  is  one  long  illustration  of  the  correction  of  such  im- 
pressions. 

But  if  in  united  prayer  He  acknowledged  sin  of  which  He 
was  not  personally  conscious,  the  impression  He  thus  made 
belongs  to  another  order.  A  difficulty  emerges  which  did  not 
exist  before — the  problem  of  His  own  veracity.  His  consorting 
with  the  outcast,  instead  of  being  a  perplexity  to  us  as  to  the 
Jews,  is  one  of  His  titles  to  our  reverence.  But  will  any  one 
say  that  he  is  equally  convinced  of  the  beauty  and  rightness  of 
Christ's  taking  part  in  confession  along  with  His  disciples? 
What  hinders  us  ?  Just  the  fact  that  such  an  act  in  itself  and 
inevitably  suggests  the  consciousness  of  sin  on  His  part.  We 
feel  that,  as  confession  ought  to  be  the  most  real  of  all  things, 
He  could  not  have  made  it  unless  He  had  meant  it.  All  that 
the  Church  has  learned  of  His  spirit  and  purpose  during  nine- 
teen centuries  has  not  rendered  it  easier  for  us  to  escape  this 
"  impression  "  than  it  would  have  been  for  those  who  heard  Him 
We  ask,  Could  He  have  acted  thus  honestly  and  truthfully  ? — a 
question   which  we  never  put   regarding  His    conduct  towards 


474  Appendix 

ZacchcTus  or  "  the  woman  of  the  city."  Professor  Bruce  re- 
plies, "Yes,  with  perfect  honesty.  His  utterances  of  confession 
in  united  prayer  were  the  expression  of  His  brotherliness,  of 
that  heart  of  love  which  identified  itself  with  sinners  in  their 
need,  and  which  made  that  right  for  Him  as  one  of  a  company 
which  was  impossible  for  Him  as  an  individual."  Whether  the 
category  of  sympathy  could  thus  make  veracious  what  naturally 
appears  otherwise,  we  shall  inquire  later.  Here  we  have  only 
to  note  that  the  solution  is  not  in  any  way  helped  by  refer- 
ences to  acts  which  relatively  to  His  own  consciousness 
present  no  difficulty,  and  which  were  misunderstood  by  His 
contemporaries. 

The  Baptism  of  Jesus  may  be  thought  to  afford  a  nearer 
approach  to  a  parallel.  For  the  rite  which  John  administered 
is  described  as  a  "  baptism  of  repentance  unto  the  remission  of 
sins."  This  was  its  character  as  preached  by  himself,  and  as 
observed  by  the  people  who  came  to  receive  it.  But  just 
because  it  signified  for  them  "a  break  with  a  sinful  past,"  it 
implied  also  a  new  start  in  life,  the  dedication  of  themselves 
to  a  new  career  of  holiness,  in  view  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
which  was  declared  to  be  at  hand.  It  was  on  this  positive  side, 
as  symbolising  a  fresh  committal  of  oneself  for  the  future,  that 
the  rite  had  its  meaning  for  Jesus.  He  joined  in  the  popular 
movement  as  an  act  of  self-consecration,  recognising  in  John 
one  commissioned  by  God  to  inaugurate  a  new  and  great  epoch 
in  the  national  life.  In  the  eyes  of  the  bystanders  His  action 
might  imply  that  He  took  His  place  there  as  a  penitent ;  but 
this  was  a  matter  in  which  their  ignorance  of  the  data  led  them 
to  misinterpret  Him,  as  they  misinterpreted  His  ministry  of  com- 
passion for  the  "lost."  It  would  have  been  a  totally  different 
thing  had  He  actually  used  the  language  of  repentance  which 
was  the  usual  accompaniment  ^  of  the  rite,  and  thus  identified 

^  "They  were  Ijaptizcd  of  him  in  Jordan,  coufessivg  thci>-  sins.^'  Pro- 
fessor Bruce  evidently  regards  the  scruples  attributed  to  the  Baptist  by  Matthew 
(iii.  14,  15)  as  read  back  by  the  reflection  of  a  later  lime.  They  have,  how- 
ever, an  inherent  prolxibility.  \Vith  Jesus,  as  with  otliers  who  presented 
themselves,  John  would    naturally  hold   converse,  and    the  absence  of  con- 


Appendix  475 

Himself  with  the  ordinance  in  its  negative  aspect.  The  bap- 
tism therefore  offers  no  real  analogy  to  that  united  confession 
which  Dr.  Bruce  holds  that  Jesus  habitually  observed  with  His 
friends. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  problem  before  us  is 
specifically  the  relation  of  Christ  to  His  disciples.  For  the  great 
w^ork  of  His  ministry,  round  which,  as  time  went  on,  His  other 
activities  more  and  more  grouped  themselves,  was  the  "Training 
of  the  Twelve."  This  small  circle  of  selected  spirits  was  to  form 
the  nucleus  of  His  Church.  On  them  He  had  to  stamp  His 
personality  in  such  wise  that  they  would  receive  His  spirit,  and 
represent  Him  rightly  to  the  world.  It  is  to  the  ministry,  as 
depicted  by  those  who  stood  to  Him  in  this  intimacy,  that  we 
must  turn  to  gain  that  conception  of  Him  which  He  Himself 
desired  to  have  perpetuated.  Conjectures,  indeed,  more  or  less 
plausible,  may  be  formed  as  to  the  religious  exercises  in  which 
He  took  part  as  a  boy  or  as  a  man  during  His  silent  years, 
either  in  the  home  or  in  the  synagogue.  Very  probably,  for 
example,  the  consciousness  of  His  own  unique  fellowship  with 
the  Father  was  first  awakened  in  Him  as  He  heard  or  re- 
peated the  Psalms,  and  recognised  that  in  their  cries  of  contri- 
tion they  were  no  expression  of  His  personal  experience.  But 
on  His  religious  habits  during  this  preparatory  period  we  have 
no  evidence.  Nor  even  if  we  had^  would  it  necessarily  guide  us 
in  judging  His  conduct  from  the  time  when  He  began  to  mani- 
fest Himself  to  Israel.  For  the  baptism  was  the  great  dividing 
line  in  His  life.  It  altered  His  relations  not  only  towards  those 
who  were  bound  to  Him  by  the  closest  earthly  ties,^  but  towards 
all  with  whom  He  came  in  contact.  His  action  in  every  part 
was  now  determined  by  a  new  principle,  the  revelation  of  Him- 
self as  the  Messiah  in  a  higher  sense  than  the  people  conceived 
or  than  any  prophet  had  forecast.  Many  must  have  found 
henceforth,  as  His  mother  did,  something  strange  and  perplex- 

fession  on  the  part  of  the  former  suggests  some  such  interview  between  ilicm 
as  that  which  the  first  EvangeHst  alone  records.     On   this  point  see  Dr. 
Sanday's  remarks  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  ii.  p.  6ii. 
^  John  ii.  4,  "Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?"  , 


476  Appendix 

ing  in  His  methods,  and  not  less  in  what   He  refrained  from 
doing  than  in  what  He  did. 

Dr.  Bruce  asks,  "  In  what  other  instance  did  Jesus  follow 
tliis  imaginary  policy  of  aloofness  with  a  view  to  prevent  a  false 
impression  of  His  character  ?  "  ^  An  instance  of  a  very  striking 
kind  is  not  far  to  seek,  one  that  has  been  often  pointed  out, — 
that  He  never  joins  with  His  followers  in  a  common  "  our 
Father."  He  speaks  often  of  "your  Father,"  "the  Father," 
"  My  Father,"  and  when  He  wishes,  as  in  one  memorable  case, 
to  unite  His  own  name  with  that  of  another,  He  employs  the 
double  phrase,  "My  Father  and  your  Father,"-  thereby  ex- 
pressing the  difference  in  the  most  emphatic  way.  But  if  Jesus 
had  been  so  utterly  regardless  as  is  supposed  of  the  immediate 
impression  which  He  made  on  others,  so  long  as  He  succeeded 
in  convincing  them  of  His  sympathetic  love  and  brotherliness, 
then  His  avoidance  of  the  designation  "  our  Father "  is  in- 
explicable. It  is  the  very  term  we  would  expect  Him  to  use. 
For  it  w^ould  have  brought  out  the  sonship  which  in  a  sense  He 
shared  with  them ;  and  the  peculiar  quality  in  His  sonship  might 
have  been  left  for  time  and  experience  to  reveal.  Why  did  He 
abstain?  Because  He  had  come  into  the  world  to  "manifest 
Himself,"  and  His  whole  mission  depended  on  the  accuracy  of 
that  manifestation.  It  was  of  primary  moment  that  the  dis- 
ciples should  realise  His  separateness  and  His  supremacy,  and 
He  would  not  employ  a  phrase  which  seemed  to  imperil  the 
unshared  nature  of  His  sonship.  In  this  point  at  least  He  took 
precautions  to  "prevent  a  false  impression." 

Further :  Is  it  not  a  dangerous  theory  to  regard  Jesus  as 
speaking  at  one  time  out  of  His  individual,  and  at  another  out 
of  His  social  or  representative,  consciousness?  This  was  a 
favourite  patristic  distinction.  Augustine  interprets  the  cry  of 
desolation  on  the  Cross  as  uttered  by  Jesus  not  for  Himself,  but 
in  the  person  of  His  Church.  Cyril  maintains  that  the  ignor- 
ance which  our  Lord  acknowledges  regarding  the  Last  Day  •'  was 
only  apparent,  and  was  assumed  by  Him  as  "suitable"  to  the 

1  Expositor,  March  iSt^S,  "The  Laptism  of  Jesus,"  pp.  196,  197. 
-John  XX.  17.  "  Mark  xiii.  32. 


Appendix  477 

humanity  which  He  wore.  "When  His  disciples  would  have 
learnt  w^hat  was  above  them,  He  pretends  for  their  profit  not 
to  know,  inasmuch  as  He  is  man."^  No  one  has  criticised 
Cyril's  view  with  greater  keenness  than  Dr.  Bruce.  And  no 
marvel ;  for  it  makes  any  genuine  understanding  of  our  Lord's 
personal  experience  impossible.  Yet  is  the  attribution  of  con- 
fession to  Jesus  not  an  example  of  the  very  principle  which  is 
here  condemned?  In  acknowledging  sin,  He  is  speaking  not 
personally,  but  representatively  as  a  member  of  the  race  with 
which  He  has  in  love  identified  Himself.  If  His  intense 
brotherliness  towards  men  enabled  Him  to  join  in  a  confession 
of  unworthiness  which  as  an  individual  He  did  not  feel,  why 
should  it  not  have  warranted  Him  in  appearing  for  their  profit 
to  be  iG;norant  of  that  which  as  an  individual  He  knew?  But  if 
in  these  solemn  matters  His  words  are  not  to  be  taken  in  their 
direct  and  obvious  sense,  a  profound  uncertainty  is  cast  over  His 
whole  self-revelation,  and  a  door  opened  for  all  sorts  of  fantastic 
interpretation. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the  debt  which  Scotland 
owes  to  the  late  Professor  Bruce,  who  for  the  last  tw^enty  years 
has  been  the  most  influential  and  suggestive  theologian  in  the 
Scottish  Churches.  He  has  brought  out  with  remarkable  power 
the  graciousness  and  charm  of  the  gospel  message,  the  infinite 
attractiveness  of  Christ's  humanity  and  of  His  self-sacrificing  love 
for  men.  But  this  conception  tends  so  much  to  dominate  Dr. 
Bruce's  thought,  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it  has  not  led 
him  to  overlook  or  minimise  other  aspects  of  our  Lord's  char- 
acter. Sympathy  is  not  more  a  characteristic  of  Jesus  than 
aloofness  or  reserve.  However  fraternal  His  relations  with  others, 
they  were  penetrated  with  this  quality  of  separateness  or  authority. 
If  His  claim  to  be  the  one  Rabbi  and  Master,-  and  the  indis- 
pensable Revealer  of  the  Father,^  or  any  other  of  His  imperat- 
ive assertions  of  supremacy,  did  not  destroy  His  brotherliness 
towards  the  disciples,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  it  should  be  de- 
stroyed  or   impaired   by   His   abstention    from   the  confessions 

^  See  Bruce,  Hinniliatioii  of  Christ,  pp.  366-372. 

2  Matt,  xxiii.  8,  10.  ^  Matt.  xi.  27. 


478  Appendix 

which  they  offered.  It  is  the  blending  of  these  two  opposite 
categories  of  fraternity  and  uniqueness  which  constitutes  the 
problem  of  His  personality. 

Dr.  Stalker  takes,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  a  medial  view. 
In  his  recent  Cimningham  Lectures  he  says,  "  I  am  doubtful  of 
the  fact,"  i.e.  of  Jesus'  abstention  from  common  prayer.  "It 
seems  to  me  that  He  did  pray  with  others  when  He  gave  thanks 
in  their  name ;  and  may  there  not  be  prayer  without  confession  ?  "  ^ 
What  ground,  then,  is  there  for  supposing  that  our  Lord  took 
part  with  His  disciples  in  devotion,  but  with  the  confessional 
element  left  out?  The  reference  which  Dr.  Stalker  makes  to 
thanksgivings  does  not  carry  us  very  far.  There  are  three 
occasions  when  Jesus  is  represented  as  giving  thanks  at  a 
common  feast — the  Feeding  of  the  Five  Thousand,-  the  Feeding 
of  the  Four  Thousand,^  and  the  Last  Supper.'*  Two  words, 
practically  synonymous,^  ^vko-^Civ  and  ^v-^apicndv,  are  used  to 
describe  the  act,  which  was  simply  the  observance  by  our  Lord 
of  the  immemorial  Jewish  usage,  as  exemplified  in  the  solemn 
thanksgiving  at  the  Passover.  The  recognised  form  of  bless- 
ing was,  "  Blessed  art  Thou,  O  Lord  God,  who  bringest  forth 
bread  from  the  earth,"  ^  which  may  be  compared  with  the 
mediaeval  grace,  "  Benedictus  benedicat."  That  Jesus  should 
have  joined  with  others  in  the  ascription  of  blessing  to  God 
before  a  meal,  as  in  the  singing  of  the  Hallel "  at  the  Last 
Supper,  was  only  in  accordance  with  the  adherence  to  Jewish 
religious  practices  which  led  Him  to  resort  to  the  synagogue  on 
the  Sabbath  day ;  but  it  throws  no  light  on  what  may  be  called 
His  personal  habits  as  regards  common  devotion.  The  prayer 
which  a  religious  leader  offers  up  with  his  followers  is  the  lifting 
up  of  their  life  into  communion  with  God,  and  is  coloured  by 
the   specific   experience   through   which    they   are   passing.      It 

^  C/iristology  of  Jesus,  p.  81. 

-  Matt.  xiv.  19  ;  Mark  vi,  41  ;  Luke  ix.  16  ;  John  vi.  11. 

'^  Matt.  XV.  36  ;  Mark  viii.  6,  7. 

*  Matt.  xxvi.  26,  27  ;  Mark  xiv.  22,  23  ;  Luke  xxii.  17,  19. 

•''  See  Grimms'  N.  T.  Lexicon,  in  he. 

"  n.  15.  Swele,  Commentary  on  St.  Mark :  note  on  vi.  41. 

"  Matt.  xxvi.  30  ;   Mark  xiv.  26. 


Appendix  479 

brings  help  and  inspiration,  because  it  is  the  expression  of  their 
present  joys  and  sorrows  in  relation  to  the  Divine  holiness  and 
mercy.  There  is  not  the  slightest  indication  that  the  "  common  " 
thanksgivings  of  Jesus  were  such  acknowledgments  of  the  par- 
ticular bounties  of  Providence  or  Grace  as  the  Psalmists  so  fre- 
quently make,  or  as  we  offer  for  ourselves  and  our  brethren. 
And  what  of  the  other  elements  in  prayer — supplication  and 
intercession  ?  The  disciples,  above  most  men,  were  called  to 
a  hard  task,  all  the  harder  for  them  that  they  so  little  realised 
what  was  involved  in  it.  Part  by  part  Jesus  set  before  them  its 
conditions,  its  demands,  its  hopes  and  rewards.  Did  He  make 
these  duties  and  privileges  which  were  the  subjects  of  His  in- 
struction to  them  also  the  subjects  of  united  supplication  ?  Was 
He  the  spokesman  day  by  day  of  their  varied  needs  at  the  Throne 
of  Grace,  petitioning  in  their  name,  and  in  His  own,  for  guidance, 
for  submission  to  God's  will,  for  faith  and  courage  amid  surround- 
ing peril ;  and  for  these  and  other  necessities  always  in  view  of 
actual  circumstances^  teniptations^  and  trials  ?  Did  He  who  inter- 
ceded with  the  Father T^r  them,i  unite  7uitli  them  in  those  mani- 
fold intercessions  for  others,  which  all  who  cherish  His  spirit 
recognise  as  necessary?  This  detailed  expression  of  wants  and 
aspirations  is  what  we  mean  by  common  prayer ;  and  if  in  these 
things  He  did  not  constitute  Himself  their ,  representative,  then 
it  is  futile  to  say  that  in  the  ordinary  sense  He  "  prayed  with " 
them. 

Moreover,  by  what  name  is  He  supposed  to  have  addressed 
God?  The  basal  fact  in  His  teaching  is  that  He  construed  the 
Divine  character  under  the  category  of  Fatherhood ;  and  He 
laboured  by  every  possible  means  of  exhortation,  parable,  and 
example  to  deepen  in  His  followers  the  heart  of  childlike  trust. 
This  conception  of  God,  this  attitude  of  humble  and  assured 
confidence  in  God's  fatherly  care,-  must  have  pervaded  all  the 
devotional  utterances  of  Jesus.  In  what  other  way,  then,  could 
He  designate  God  than  as  "our  Father"?  and  yet  this  is  the 
very  expression  which  He  uniformly  avoids  in  His  conversation 
and  discourses.  Dr.  Stalker  holds  that  the  attempts  to  break 
^  John  xvii.  2  ]\fatt.  vi.  25-34;  x.  19,  20. 


4  So  Appendix 

down  the  distinction  in  His  use  of  "  your  Father "  and  "  My 
Father"  have  been  "totally  without  avail."  ^  But  if  the  distinc- 
tion vanished  in  His  prayers,  it  ceases  to  have  any  significance. 

On  the  hypothesis  that  Jesus  identified  Himself  at  all  with 
the  disciples  in  devotion,  then  Dr.  Bruce's  theory  of  a  complete 
identification  is  the  more  probable.  For  the  elimination  of  con- 
fession implies  much  more  than  at  first  appears.  The  conscious- 
ness of  sin  affects  our  whole  approach  to  God.  It  blends  with 
all  our  thanksgiving  and  intercession ;  with  our  remembrance  of 
past  benefits ;  with  our  sense  of  present,  and  our  anticipation  of 
future,  duty.  And  if  in  the  common  supplications  which  Jesus 
offered  there  was  no  petition  for  forgiveness,  7ior  a?iy  allusion  to 
a  pe?iife?ifs  experience,  they  could  not  but  be  a  most  inadequate 
expression  of  the  disciples'  needs.  We  are  shut  up,  I  think,  to 
the  conclusion  that  either  He  abstained  altogether,  or  made 
Himself  entirely  one  with  His  brethren.  It  is  a  case  of  "not 
at  all "  or  "  all  in  all." 

The  difficulties  which  attach  to  the  latter  alternative  are,  as  has 
been  shown,  extremely  great.  Those  who  advocate  it  have  first 
and  foremost  to  face  the  fact  that  it  receives  no  support  from  the 
records.  Is  the  omission  capable  of  any  other  explanation  than 
that  there  was  nothing  to  relate  ?  Here  are  documents  which, 
whatever  view  be  taken  of  their  authorship  or  of  the  process 
whereby  they  assumed  their  present  form,  give  a  most  vivid  pic- 
ture of  the  personality  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  impression  which  He 
made  on  those  most  intimately  associated  with  Him.  On  many 
aspects  of  His  life,  on  which  an  ordinary  biographer  would 
dilate,  they  say  little  or  nothing.  The  whole  emphasis  is  laid 
on  the  spiritual  side  of  His  character,  on  what  He  was  as  a 
religious  leader  of  incomparable  insight  and  authority ;  but  in 
this  respect  the  representation  is  full  of  minute  detail.  We 
are  told  that  He  frequently  withdrew  to  a  solitary  place  for 
prayer,-  and  that  He  also  prayed  alo?ie  while  His  disciples  were 
with  Him.-'     In  the  latter  case  we  have  sometimes  a  report  of 


^  Chi-istology  of  JcsKS,  p.  105. 

2  Luke  iv.  42  ;  v.  16  ;  Matt.  xiv.  23  ;  cf.  Luke  ix.  2S,  29. 

^  Luke  ix.  18  ;  cf.  ix.  I  ;  Matt.  xi.  25,  26  ;  Jolin  xi.  41,  42  ;  xvii. 


/ 


Appendix  48 1 

the  words  He  used.  When,  then,  we  have  not  merely  no  report 
of  a  single  prayer  offered  by  Him  along  with  others,  but  no  sug- 
gestion that  He  ever  offered  one  (though,  if  it  occurred  at  all,  it 
must  have  been  a  habitual  practice),  the  inference  surely  is  irre- 
sistible. 

One  thing  at  least  is  clear.  The  question  is  not  to  be  settled 
by  a  priori  considerations.  It  is  as  illegitimate  to  argue  that  He 
mnst  have  observed  common  prayer  because  He  was  a  man,  as 
that  He  must  have  known  the  day  and  hour  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment because  He  was  the  Son  of  God.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation  is  essentially  an  induction  from  facts ;  and  abstract 
ideas  of  humanity  and  divinity  afford  no  help  in  determining  the 
self-consciousness  or  the  particular  actions  of  the  Incarnate  One. 
Our  entire  conception  of  Him  must  be  construed,  and  if  neces- 
sary re-construed,  in  the  light  of  the  data :  and  the  question  of 
our  Lord's  prayers  is  but  a  small,  though  by  no  means  an  un- 
important, part  of  a  vast  problem — the  unique  attitude  which  He 
assumed  towards  men. 


3* 


INDEX. 


Amiel,  H.  F.  :  his  definition  of  re- 
ligion, 44. 

Andrews,  S.  J.  :  on  the  duration  of 
Jesus'  ministry,  402. 

Animal  suffering :  the  problem  of, 
424-7. 

Appearances  of  the  risen  Christ :  their 
objective  reality,  138-46;  the  Vision 
hypothesis,  139-46;  value  of  Paul's 
testimony,  140-4  ;  their  unique 
character  as  blending  the  earthly 
and  the  spiritual,  146-53 ;  Weiz- 
sacker  on  different  layers  of  tradition 
regarding  them,  149-50 ;  are  a 
revelation  of  the  spiritual  in  a 
world  of  sense-perception,  150-2; 
vouchsafed  to  believers  only,  153-7 ; 
not  intended  to  create  a  new  faith, 
but  to  reinstate  and  transfigure  the 
old  one,  154-5  ;  part  of  the  one 
objective  divine  manifestation,  165  ; 
their  significance  for  subsequent 
ages,  414-5- 

Aristotle  :  on  the  High-minded  Man, 
9-10. 

Arnold,  Matthew :  on  Christ's  miracles, 
125 ;  on  Puritanism,  290;  his  denial 
of  personality  to  God,  437-8  ;  on 
fact  and  idea  in  religion,  467. 

Arnold,  Dr.  T.,  293. 

Ascension,  Christ's,  and  the  Forty 
Days,  412-3. 

Augustine  :  on  the  Trinity,  439. 

Badham,  F.  p.  :  on  Mark's  indel^ted- 

ness  to  Matthew,  115. 
Balfour,    A.  J.  :   on   the  decisions  of 

the  Church  Councils,  436. 
Baptism  :  the  apostolic  view  of,  280-2. 
Beet,  Prof.  J.  Agar,  270. 
Benson,  A.  C.  :  on  the  aesthetic  and 

Christian  ideals,  295-6. 


Beyschlag,  W.,  53,  267;  on  name 
'Son  of  Man,'  60,  64,  66;  on 
name  'Son  of  God,'  69;  on 
Christ's  pre-existence,  77-8. 

Browning,  291. 

Bruce,  Prof.  A.  B.,  206,  222,  271, 
"^IZ,  342  ;  on  the  prayers  of  Christ, 
24 ;  on  Christ's  claim  to  forgive 
sins,  51  ;  on  the  perpetuity  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  58;  on  Christ's 
words,  '  I  am  meek,'  59  ;  on  Phil, 
ii.  5-1 1,  192;  on  the  Lutheran 
theory  of  'illocal  ubiquity,'  194-5; 
on  2  Cor.  V.  1-8,  373  ;  on  author- 
ship of  Fourth  Gospel,  392 ;  on 
Christ's  suffering,  439-40  ;  on  the 
status  and  spirit  of  sonship,  442-3  ; 
on  Paul's  conception  of  the  law,  447. 

Bushnell,  Dr.  H.  :  on  '  anticipative 
consequences  '  of  sin,  426. 

Caillard.  Miss  E.  M.  :  on  the  Fall, 

455- 
Caird,    Dr.  E.  :    on   nature   and   the 

supernatural,  123  ;  on  Jesus  as  the 

embodiment  of  the  idea  of  a  divine 

humanity,  304-5  ;  on  Jesus  as  most 

divine  because  most  human,  3 10- 1. 
Caird,  Principal  J.,  121;  on  Hebrew 

monotheism,  209. 
Carlyle,  T.,  362. 
Carpenter,  J.  E.  :  on   name   '  Son  of 

Man,'  63-4. 
Caspari,  C.  E.  :  on  the  chronology  of 

Jesus'  ministry,  142,  403. 
Chadwick,    Bishop    G.    A.  :    on    the 

prayers  of  Christ,  385-6. 
Chalcedon,  Council  of,  193-5. 
'Charismata,'  the,  in  Pauls  epistles, 

459-60. 
Christoplianics.    See  "Appearances  of 

the  risen  Christ." 


•iS3 


484 


Index 


Church,  the  :  the  medium  and  inter- 
preter of  the  Christian  message, 
278-9,  322-3  ;  the  New  Testament 
conception  of,  2S2-7 ;  in  what 
sense  the  extension  of  the  Incar- 
nation, 287-8. 

Church,  Dean  :  on  Christian  society 
as  it  now  is  and  the  N.T.  teaching, 
358,  469-71. 

Claims  of  Jesus,  43-87  : — to  be  the 
final  Teacher  of  God's  will,  45-7  ; 
to  pronounce  decisively  on  character, 
47-52  ;  that  attachment  to  Himself 
is  imperative,  52-4  ;  to  be  the  final 
Judge  of  men,  54-5  ;  as  '  the  Son 
of  Man,'  60-6;  as  'the  Son'  of 
the  Father,  66-70,  75-9. 

Cobbe,  Miss  F.  P.,  312;  on  miracle, 
408. 

Councils,  Church  :  character  of  their 
decisions  regarding  Christ's  person, 
193,  435-6. 

Crawford,  Prof.  T.  J.  :  on  the  de- 
cisions of  the  Church  Councils,  435. 

Cyril  of  Alexandria :  on  Christ's  know- 
ledge, 195. 

Dale,  Dr.  R.  W.  :  on  the  remission 
of  sins,  243-5  '■>  ^^  the  recognition 
of  Christ's  death  as  propitiatory, 
249-51  ;  on  Christian  faith  as  not 
dependent  on  preservation  of  the 
Gospels,  323-5  ;  on  the  direct  ap- 
peal of  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels 
to  the  spirit  of  man,  330 ;  on 
Christ's  abstention  from  'common 
prayer,'  385  ;  on  the  limitations  of 
Jesus'  knowledge,  399. 

Davidson,  Prof.  A.  B. ,  39 :  on  the 
Hebrew  personification  of  Wisdom, 
209. 

D'Azeglio,  Massimo  :  on  miracle,  40S. 

Death,  Christ's:  anticipated  by  Him 
from  beginning  of  ministry,  99- 
106 ;  the  ground  of  forgiveness, 
228-40  ;  the  apostles'  view  of  it  not 
a  misconception,  229-38  ;  character 
of  His  own  references  to  it,  232-3  ; 
effect  which  the  anticipation  of  it  had 
on  Him,  233-6;  its  significance  as 
indicated  by  the  Last  Supper,  236- 
7  ;  possesses  atoning  value  only  as 
related  to  His  earthly  life  and  to 
His  risen  life,  240-6  ;  has  not  the 
character  of  a  quantitative  ecjuiva- 


lent,  246-8  ;  the  conscious  recogni- 
tion of  its  atoning  value,  249-51. 

Denney,  Prof.  J.,  48,  393,  428 ;  on  the 
final  Judgment,  367  ;  on  the  Fall, 
458. 

Dods,  Prof.  M.  :  on  Paul's  view  of 
Christ's  resurrection,  141-2. 

Dorner,  Dr.  I.  A. :  on  an  Incarnation 
apart  from  sin,  188  ;  on  the  an- 
kypostasia,  198 ;  on  God's  fore- 
sight of  human  actions,  434. 

Duty :  its  infinite  nature  revealed  in 
Judaism,  10-3 ;  finality  of  Christ's 
conception  of,  13-7  ;  relation  of,  to 
immortality,  1 5-7,  383-4. 

Edwards,  Principal  T.  C,  197;  on 
man  as  possessing  race-existence, 
183-4;  on  an  Incarnation  apart 
from  sin,  189  ;  on  the  double  life  of 
the  Logos,  202. 

Eliot,  George :  on  the  relation  of 
duty  to  immortality,  15-6,  383-4. 

Ellicott,  Bishop  C.  J.  :  on  the  dura- 
tion of  Jesus'  ministr}-,  402-3. 

Emerson,  R.  W.  :  on  miracle,  125. 

Environment  and  the  new  life,  355-8. 

Evolution  :  and  the  religion  of  Israel, 
35-7  ;  cannot  account  for  the  moral 
nature  of  Jesus,  '^'j-2i,  3S8-90. 

Evolution  and  the  Fall,  450-9. 

Fact  and  ideal,  463-8. 

Fairbairn,  Principal  A.  'M.,  285;  on 
the  eternal  Sonship,  181  ;  on  the 
Kenosis,  200-1  ;  on  the  person- 
ality of  the  Spirit,  211  ;  on  ecclesi- 
astical polity,  2S7. 

Faith :  the  one  condition  of  divine 
life  for  man,  fallen  or  unfallen, 
265-6 ;  sustained  by  unconscious 
actions,  460-1.  See  "  L^nconscious 
faith.  ^' 

Fall,  the,  and  evolution,  450-9. 

Farrar,  Dean,  142. 

Fatherhood  of  God  :  determining  idea 
in  Christ's  teaching,  14-5,  109-10  ; 
as  presented  in  Synoptics  and  Fourth 
Gospel,  85,  395-7. 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  462,  463. 

Fourth  Gospel,  the  :  agrees  substan- 
tially with  the  Synoptics  on  two 
main  points— (l)  jesus'  relation  to 
men,  74-5,  and  (2)  His  relation  to 
tlie   Father,   75-6 ;   unique,   as  re- 


Index 


485 


cording  Christ's  assertion  of  His 
pre-existence,  76-9  ;  authorship  of, 
79-80,  392  ;  the  problem  presented 
by  the  discourses  in,  80-7  ;  the 
prologue  the  key  to  it,  80,  392-3  ; 
reads  the  beginning  of  Jesus' ministry 
in  the  light  of  the  end,  S2-4 ;  its 
representation  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  85,  396-7  ;  its  place  as  a  his- 
torical document,  86. 
Eraser,  Prof.  A.  C.  :  on  miracle  in 
relation  to  moral  evil,  406-7 ;  on 
the  personality  of  God,  438, 

GiFFORD,  Dr.  E.  H.  :  on  Phil.  ii. 
5-11,  192. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  366. 

Ciodet,  F.  :  on  the  prayers  of  Christ, 
23  ;  on  specific  objections  to  Jesus' 
conduct,  31  ;  on  Luke  ii.  41-51,  96  ; 
on  Jesus'  self-consciousness  previous 
to  His  ministry,  97;  on  the  greatness 
of  Jesus,  105-6  ;  his  view  of  the 
Kenosis  discussed,  195-202. 

Goodness  of  Jesus  :  though  unique, 
of  an  essentially  human  type,  32, 
38-40. 

Gore,  Canon  C,  113,  125,  207,  240, 
241  >  399,  401  ;  on  the  decisions  of 
the  Church  Councils,  193,  435-6  ; 
on  the  double  life  of  the  Logos, 
202-3;  01^  'imputation,'  443^4; 
on  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall,  454-5. 

Gospels,  the  :  place  of,  as  historical 
documents,  86  ;  the  link  between 
the  historic  Jesus  and  the  Church's 
interpretation  of  Him,  315-8,  323- 
30  ;  prevent  permanent  misconcep- 
tions of  Christ's  work,  334-6. 
Gould,  Prof.  E.  P.  :  on  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  Man,  104  ;  on  the  Syn- 
optic accounts  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion, 150. 
Green,  Prof.  T.  H.  :  on  the  historical 
element  in  Christian  faith,  5,  301-4, 
312;  his  rendering  of  Christianity, 
302-4. 

Harnack,  a.  :  on  Jesus'  claim  to  be 
Messiah,  93 ;  on  the  traditional 
dates  of  the  N.T.  writings,  146; 
on  the  significance  of  the  Christo- 
phanies,  155,  414-5  ;  on  Prologue 
of  Fourth  Gospel,  392-3  ;  on  per- 
sonality in  history,  466-7. 


Harris,  Prof.  S.,  425,  434. 

Headlam,  A.  C.     8eR  "  Sanday." 

Hegel,  G.  W.  F.  :  Iiis  conception  of 
Trinity  as  essentially  involved  in 
thought,  210  ;  his  view  of  the  Fall, 
451  ;  his  attitude  to  historical 
Christianity,  464-5. 

Herrmann,  Prof.  W.  :  his  view  of  the 
genesis  of  faith  in  the  risen  Christ 
examined,  159-68,  171  ;  his  con- 
ception of  the  exalted  Christ,  415-6. 

Historical  belief:  determines  largely 
all  our  ideas  of  duty,  312-3,  and 
especially  our  religious  convictions, 
313-4. 

Historical  element  in  Christianity: 
its  relation  to  the  spiritual,  1-5, 
301-36;  objection  to,  4-5,  301-2, 
3 1 1-2;  why  capable  of  exceptional 
verification,  315-23;  this  verifica- 
tion at  heart  spiritual,  31S-23. 

Holy  Spirit,  the  :  doctrine  of,  arose 
historically,  205-6;  in  what  sense 
the  alter  ego  of  Christ,  206-7  ;  His 
personality  known  only  through 
that  of  the  Son,  207-8. 

Hort,  F.  J.  A.,  243  ;  on  the  Christian 
Ecclesia,  282-3  5  ^^  the  conditions 
of  salvation,  369  ;  on  the  progress- 
ive purification  of  the  soul  after 
death,  377-8 ;  on  the  account  of 
the  Fall  in  Genesis,  457  ;  on  the 
'charismata'  in  Paul's  epistles, 
459  ;  on  unconscious  faith,  468-9. 
Hutton,  R.  H.  :  on  the  eternal  Son- 
ship,  432-3  ;  on  unconscious  actions 
as  sustaining  faith,  460-1  ;  on  the 
verification  of  a  historical  revela- 
tion, 468. 
Huxley,  Prof.  T.  H. :  on  miracle,  117. 

Ideals  of  conduct :  Greek  and  Chris- 
tian, contrasted,  8-10,  38 1-3. 

Illingworth,  J.  R.,  438-9;  on  per- 
sonality in  the  Godhead,  210. 

Immortality :  relation  of  duty  to,  15-7, 

383-4.. 
Incarnation,  the  :  its  motive  as  pre- 
sented in  New  Testament,  184-5  '■> 
was  it  a  necessity  apart  from  sin? 
185-92  ;  more  credible  morally  if  its 
purpose  was  redemptive,  190-1  ; 
Kenotic  views  of,  195-204 ;  corre- 
spondence of,  with  human  needs, 
320-1 


486 


Index 


Intermediate  State,  an,  371-9;  no 
clear  Scripture  teaching  on,  372-3, 
378-9 ;  as  a  Probation,  374-6 ;  as 
a  Purification,  376-9. 

'  Invincible  ignorance  ' :  doctrine  of, 
36S. 

Iverach,  Prof.  J.,  389,  439,  468. 

jACOBi,  F.  H.,  462. 

James,  Prof.  W.,  467-8. 

John  the  Baptist :  his  designation  of 
Jesus  as  '  the  Lamb  of  God,'  393-4. 

Johnstone,  Prof.  R.,  20. 

Jowett,  B.,  446. 

Judaism  :  development  of  the  concep- 
tion of  duty  through,  10-3  ;  rela- 
tion of  Christ  to,  13-5,  417-9. 

Justification  and  the  new  life.  243-6, 

276-7,  440-4. 
fustitia  imputata  and  Justitia  infiisa, 
440-4. 

Kant,  461. 

Keim,  T. :  on  the  Vision  hypothesis, 
143  ;  on  baptism  in  the  apostolic 
Church,  280. 

Kenotic  Christology,  195-204. 

Kirkpatrick,  Prof.  A.  F.  :  on  the  pro- 
phetic conception  of  Israel  as  an 
individual,  1 1. 

Knowledge,  Jesus' :  its  scope  inde- 
terminable a /r/^rz,  104;  its  limita- 
tions, 104-6,  398-401  ;  unerring 
in  the  spiritual  sphere,  106,  400- 1. 

Knox,  A.  :  on  the  ultimate  and  media- 
tory truths  of  Christianity,  274. 

Laidlaw,  Prof.  J.  :  on  the  connec- 
tion between  sin  and  physical  death, 
428. 

Last  Judgment,  the  :  Christ's  parable 
of  (^Latt.  XXV.),  341-5;  involved 
in  the  idea  of  a  moral  universe,  367. 

Last  Supper,  the  :  as  a  revelation  of 
Christ's  self-consciousness,  58 ;  its 
testimony  to  the  significance  of  His 
death,  236-7. 

Latham,  H.  :  on  the  chronology  of 
Jesus'  ministry,  403. 

Law  of  God,  the  :  its  essential  rela- 
tion to  God's  life,  255-7 ;  as  it 
exists  for  the  sinner,  257,  261  ; 
Paul's  conception  of,  259-62,  444- 
50  ;  Old  Testament  views  of,  447- 
50- 


Le  Conte,  Prof.  J. :  on  evolution  and 
the  Christ,  388-90. 

Leibniz,  407,  408. 

Lessing  :  on  c<;ntingcnt  and  necessary 
truths,  463-4. 

Lightfoot,  Bishop  J.  B. :  on  author- 
ship of  Fourth  Gosprl,  79-80  ;  on 
the  sacerdotal  conception  of  the 
Church,  286 ;  on  the  Passovers  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  401-2 ;  on 
Paul's  view  of  the  law,  446-7,  450. 

Lock,  W.,  285. 

Logos,  the,  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 
79-80,  179-81. 

Lotze,  II. :  on  personality,  437. 

Luckock,  Dean:  on  probation  after 
death,  375. 

Mair,  Dr.  A.,  146. 

Martensen,  H. :  on  the  double  life 
of  the  Logos,  202  ;  on  the  final 
Judgment,  367. 

Martineau,  Dr.  J.:  on  Christ's  unique 
goodness,  33-5  ;  on  Christ's  claim 
to  forgive  sins,  50 ;  on  Christ's 
self-assertion,  56  ;  on  name  '  Son 
of  Man,'  60-1,  64;  his  denial  that 
Jesus  claimed  to  be  Messiah,  93, 
409-11  ;  on  the  significance  of  the 
Christophanies,  414 ;  on  the  con- 
flicting moral  aspects  of  the  world, 

424-5- 

Matheson,  Dr.  G. :  on  Paul's  concep- 
tion of  the  law,  445-6. 

Menegoz,  E.  :  on  Paul's  view  of 
Christ's  resurrection,  141-2. 

Messiahship  :  as  understood  by  the 
jews,  70-1,  and  by  Jesus,  71-3; 
His  consciousness  of,  probably  at- 
tained previous  to  II is  baptism, 
93-9;  Martineau  on  jesus'  claim 
to,  93,  409-11.  St'c  also  "Son- 
ship,  Christ's  divine." 

Meyer,  H.  A.  W.  :  on  name  '  Son  of 
Man,'  66  ;  on  the  parable  of  the 
Last  Judgment,  342-5. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  86,  no. 

Miracle:  belongs  to  a  disorganised 
world,  122-5,  406-8  ;  relation  of, 
to  natural  revelation,  405  ;  the  false 
vjew  of,  408-9. 

Miracles,  Christ's:  one  means  of  His 
self-manifestation,  1 14-27  ;  that  He 
claimed  to  work  them  quite  certain, 
1 14-6  ;  ought  to  be  judged  as  part 


Index 


487 


of  His  total  self-manifestation,  114, 
117-22;  their  credibility,  116-9; 
objection  to  them  from  uniformity 
of  nature  invalid  in  the  light  of 
Christ's  verifiable  sinlcssness,  117- 
20  ;  as  expressions  of  His  character 
and  mission,  120-2  ;  His  self- 
restraint  in  them,  122,  404-5  ; 
have  a  place  only  in  a  disorganised 
world,  122-5;  i^iake  faith' in  the 
moral  miracle  of  Jesus  more  self- 
consistent  and  reasonable,  125-7, 

Moore,  Aubrey  L.,  456,  458:  on 
Greek  and  Christian  ideals,  382-3. 

INIoorhouse,  Bishop  J. :  on  the  limita- 
tions of  Jesus'  knowledge,  398-9, 
401. 

Morison,  Prof.  J.:  on  Mark  xiv.  33, 
235- 

Morison,  J.  C:  on  Gibbon's  view  of 
Christianity,  319-20. 

Mozley,  Canon  J.  B.,  435;  on  the 
evidential  value  of  Christ's  miracles, 
119-20;  on  the  Atonement,  225-6. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.  :  on  miracles  as  a 
revelation  of  spiritual  law,  127  ;  on 
Renan's  Vision  theory,  140 ;  on 
George  Eliot's  view  of  immortality, 
383-4. 

Nature:  its  relation  to  spirit,  121, 
125,  422-3  ;  apparent  antagonism 
of,  to  the  moral  life,  422-7. 

Neo-Hegelianism  :  its  rendering  of 
Christianity,  301-11  ;  as  tested 
by  the  Synoptic  record,  306-7  ; 
its  idealisation  of  Christ's  death  and 
resurrection,  307-11. 

New  life,  the,  in  Christ,  255-98  ;  its 
relation  to  man's  natural  character, 
266-7 ;  receptivity  its  permanent 
characteristic,  276-7  ;  the  Church 
the  home  of,  277-8S ;  humanity 
the  sphere  of  its  realisation,  288-98 ; 
not  meant  to  suppress  but  to  in- 
form and  transmute  man's  natural 
qualities,  2S8-91  ;  monastic  and 
Puritan  ideals  of,  288-93  5  ^nis- 
conceptions  of  it  due  in  part  to  a 
false  view  of  Christ's  example, 
293-5  ;  its  relation  to  environment, 
355-8. 

Newman,  F.  W.,  312. 

Newman,   Cardinal  J.  H. :  on  salva- 
tion outside  the  Church,  368. 


Orjective  element,  the,  in  Christ's 
redemptive  work,  215-51  ;  based 
on  His  transcendent  relation  to 
liumanity  as  such,  216-8;  its 
double  significance  for  pardon  and 
spiritual  (juickening,  219-21,  240-6 
See  "Death,  Christ's." 

Orr,  Prof.  J.,  204,  239,  439  ;  on  the 
connection  between  sin  and  physi- 
cal death,  42S  ;  on  God's  'plan  of 
the  world,'  187,  433. 

Ottlc}',  R.  L. :  on  Cyril's  view  of 
Christ's  knowledge,  195  ;  on  the 
ankyJ)osfasia,  19S. 

Pascal  :  on  the  true  glory  of  Christ's 
life,  398. 

Paul,  St.  :  his  philosophy  of  histoiy, 
its  three  stages,  258-64;  his  con- 
ception of  the  law,  259-62,  444-50; 
did  he  hold  that  the  new  life  ought 
to  be  complete  from  the  first  ?  267- 
71  ;  truth  of  his  teaching  not  de- 
pendent on  its  historical  setting, 
271-3;  its  essential  harmony  with 
that  of  Christ,  270-1,  273-6;  his 
attitude  to  the  earthly  life  of  Christ, 
325-8  ;  the  interpreter  of  Christ's 
complete  revelation,  331-3. 

Paulus,  H.  E.  G.  :  on  Christ's  resur- 
rection,  138. 

Person,  Christ's:  first  apostolic  con- 
ception of  it  (Christ  as  Redeemer), 
171-4;  later  apostolic  view  (fiis 
r^^wzV  relation),  174-82;  the  Pauline 
doctrine,  176-9  ;  the  J  ohannine  doc- 
trine (the  Logos),  179-81;  revela- 
tion of  the  Godhead  in,  182-4; 
discussions  regarding  its  nature, 
192-205  ;  definitions  of,  by  Church 
Councils,  193-5,  435-6;  Kenotic 
theories  of,    195-204. 

Personality  of  God,  the,  436-9. 

Pfleiderer,  O.,  13,  461. 

Pius  IX. ,  Pope  :  on  '  invincible  ignor- 
ance,' 'i^6'^. 

'Plan  of  the  world,'  God's:  inade- 
quacy  of  the  phrase,  433-5. 

Plummer,  Dr.  A.,  147,  163,  413. 

Prayers  of  Jesus :  never  offered  by 
Him  in  union  with  others,  22-7, 
385-6  ;  and  Appendix,  472  {i. 

Propitiation  for  sin,  221-8;  the  pro- 
duct, not  the  cause,  of  God's  love, 
226. 


488 


Index 


Rainy,  Principal,  276,  303. 

Redemptive  work  of  Christ :  its  two 
aspects,  objective  and  subjective, 
215  ff. ;  their  correspondence  to  the 
two  inseparable  needs  of  the  soul, 
219-20. 

Rcimarus,  II.  S.  :  on  Christ's  resur- 
rection, 138. 

'Rejection  of  Christ':  different  impli- 
cations of  the  phrase,  346-52. 

Renan  :  his  statement  of  the  Vision 
hypothesis,  139. 

Resurrection,  Christ's  :  of  a  different 
order  from  that  of  Lazarus,  I37~8  ; 
validity  of,  dependent  on  two  corre- 
lated factors,  the  outward  event 
and  the  inward  susceptibility,  155  ; 
its  contrast  to  the  miracles  of  the 
ministry,  156;  its  place  in  Apolo- 
getics, 157-8  ;  disparagement  of, 
by  Ritschlian  school,  159;  Herr- 
mann's view  criticised,  159-68;  not 
a  'process  of  resurrection,'  41 1-2. 
See  "Appearances  of  the  risen 
Christ." 

Ritschlian  view  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion, 159.     See  "Herrmann." 

Robertson,  Prof.  J.,  273. 

Sabatier,  a.,  327,  328  ;  on  the  de- 
velopment in  Paul's  view  of  Chris- 
tianity, 178-9. 

Salmon,  Dr.  G.,  174. 

Salmond,  Prof.  S.  D.  F. :  on  the  final 
Judgment,  366;  on  i  Pet.  iii.  19 
and  iv.  6,  372. 

Salvation  outside  the  Church :  the 
question  of,  367-9. 

Sanday,  Dr.  W.,  and  Headlam,  A. 
C,  206,  223,  242,  243,  266,  441, 
444. 

Schenkel,  D.  :  on  the  Messiahship 
of  Jesus,  93. 

Schultz,  H.  :  on  the  religion  of  Israel 
as  a  special  revelation,  36 ;  on  the 
Creation-narrative,  208. 

Seeley,  Sir  J.  R.  :  on  Christ  as  Judge 
of  mankind,  55  ;  on  Christ's  claim 
to  work  miracles,  116  ;  on  the  rela- 
tion of  duty  to  immortality,  384  ; 
on  Christ's  self-restraint  in  His 
miracles,  404-5. 

Self-consciousness,  moral,  of  Jesus : 
its  uniqueness,  7~40 ;  its  witness 
not  dual,  but  single,  17-40;  testi- 


mony of  the  Gospels,  18-20,  and 
of  the  Epistles,  20-1  ;  as  revealed 
in  His  abstention  from  '  common 
prayer,'  22-7  ;  free  from  misgivings 
for  the  'might-have-been,'  29-31  ; 
unique  in  kind,  not  merely  in 
degree,  34-5,  37-8 ;  inexplicable 
by  natural  evolution,  35-8  ;  though 
unique,  essentially  human,  38-40 ; 
its  uniqueness  the  fundamental  fact 
regarding  Him,  43-5 ;  expresses 
itself  both  in  self-assertion  and 
humility,  55-60 ;  contrast  in  this 
to  normal  human  goodness,  55-60. 
Self-consciousness,  moral,  of  man : 
bears   universally   a    dual   witness. 

Self-examination  :  in  what  sense  mor- 
bid, 386-8. 

Self-manifestation  of  Jesus :  its  gradual 
character,  91-3,  107-8  ;  the  three- 
fold means  He  employed  in  it,  108  ; 
continuous  operation  of  these  on  a 
special  circle  of  followers,  129-34; 
His  method  of  it  potent  through  its 
indirectness,  134. 

Self-suppression :  Dean  Stanley  on 
Christ's,  391. 

Sin:  God's  condemnation  of,  221-8; 
its  relation  to  death,  427-32  ;  Chris- 
tian idea  of,  451-3;  antinomy  in 
man's  experience  of,  453-9. 

Sinlessness,  Christ's  :  positive  implica- 
tions of,  29  ;  specific  objections  to, 
31  ;  Martineau  on,  33-5. 

Smith,  Prof.  G.  A.,  13. 

Smith,  Goldwin  :  on  the  Fall,  459. 

Smyth,  Newman  :  on  Christ's  resur- 
rection as  a  '  process,'  41 1-2. 

Society  as  it  now  is,  as  contrasted 
with  the  life  of  the  New  Testament, 
358-64,  469-71- 

'  Son  of  Man,'  the  name,  60-6  ;  Mar- 
tineau's  view  of,  60-2,  64 ;  Car- 
penter's view  of,  63-4 ;  a  veiled 
designation  of  the  Messiah,  64-5  ; 
its  double  reference  to  service  and 
lordship,  65-6. 

Sonship,  Christ's  divine :  His  con- 
sciousness of  it,  66-73  >  relation  of 
His  consciousness  of  it  to  His 
consciousnessof  Messiahship,  69-73, 
96 ;  view  of,  in  Fourth  Gospel, 
75-9  ;  attestation  of,  at  Baptism 
and  Transfiguration,  96-7,  397-S. 


Index 


489 


Sonship,  human :  grounded  in  the 
eternal  Sonship  in  God,  432-3. 

Spinoza,  461. 

Stalker,  Dr.  J. :  on  the  prayers  of 
Christ,  385. 

Stanley,  Dean :  on  Christ's  self-sup- 
pression, 391. 

Stanton,  Prof.  V.  H. :  on  the  Jewish 
Messianic  Hope,  70-2. 

Stearns,  Prof.  L.  F. :  on  justification, 
441-2. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  320. 

Stevenson,  R.  L. :  on  morbid  intro- 
spection, 386-7. 

Strauss :  on  Paulus's  view  of  Christ's 
resurrection,  139. 

Strong,  T.  B. :  on  the  origin  of  the 
Logos-doctrine  in  John,  180;  on 
Christ's  sacrifice,  245. 

Suffering,  Christ's,  238-40 ;  the  inde- 
finable element  in,  439. 

Symonds,  J.  A. :  on  the  Greek  ideal 
of  life,  381-2. 

Teaching  of  Jesus,  the  :  its  authori- 
tative character,  45-6 ;  one  means 
of  His  self-manifestation,  108-14  '■> 
the  order  and  method  of,  108-9  5 
dealt  first  with  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  109-10  ;  His  supreme  purpose 
in  it,  to  mould  character,  I  lo-i  ; 
not  didactic,  but  germinal,  1 1 1-2, 
and  therefore  the  more  authoritative, 
I 12-4. 

Thomson,  Dr.  J.  E.  H. :  on  name 
'Son  of  Man,'  65. 

Toplady,  A.  M. :  on  the  Fall,  434. 

Trinity,  the  :  a  Christian  conception, 
208  ;  in  what  sense  adumbrated  in 
the  Old  Testament,  208-9  '■>  specu- 
lative renderings  of,  209-10  ;  essen- 
tially a  historical  revelation,  211. 

Twelve,  the  :  influence  of  Jesus'  per- 
sonal presence  on,  127-9,  131  j  ^ 
'school,  but  a  school  in  the  world, 
1 30-1  ;  His  acknowledgment  of  His 
Messiahship  to,  131  ;  effects  of  this 


on  His  subsequent  intercourse  with 
them,  1 3 1-3  ;  potency  of  His  in- 
direct method  of  dealing  with  them, 
134;  duration  of  His  intercourse 
with  them,  401-3. 

Unconscious  faith :  in  the  case  of 
the  heathen,  341-5 ;  within  the 
Christian  world,  345-71  ;  in  the 
light  of  N.T.  teaching,  358-64; 
possibility  of,  no  disparagement  of 
the  historic  Faith,  370-1  ;  Dr. 
Hort  on,  468-9. 

Universalism  of  Christ,  no,  416-22. 

Vision  hypothesis :  fails  to  account 
for  the  Christophanies,  139-46. 

Watson,  Dr.  J.  :  on  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  and  of  Paul,  331. 

Weiss,  B. :  on  the  prayers  of  Christ, 
23 ;  on  Jesus'  claim  to  be  Messiah, 
93  ;  on  the  birth-time  of  Jesus' 
Messianic  consciousness,  98 ;  on 
Jesus'  view  of  His  mission  as  par- 
ticularist,  417. 

Weizsacker,  Carl  v.  :  on  discourses 
in  Fourth  Gospel,  83 ;  on  the 
Christophanies,  149-50. 

Wendt,  H.  H. :  on  Christ's  pre- 
existence,  77 ;  on  discourses  in 
Fourth  Gospel,  80,  81  ;  on  the 
birth-time  of  Jesus'  Messianic  con- 
sciousness, 94  ;  onjesus'anticipation 
of  His  death,  99  ;  on  Christ's  claim 
to  be  the  final  Judge,  345. 

Westcott,  Bishop  B.  F. :  on  the 
appearances  of  the  risen  Christ, 
156;  on  an  Incarnation  apart  from 
sin,  188  ;  on  propitiation,  221  ;  on 
the  Pass-overs  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
401-2. 

Westcott    and    Hort,     19,    20,    146, 

235- 
Wieseler,    K,  :    on    the    duration    of 

Jesus'  ministry,  402-3. 

Wordsworth,  57,  291,  293. 


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of  Professor  Dennfa',  Dr.  H.  A.  A.  Kennedy,  Professor  Marcus  Dods,  Rev.  Canon 

GiiEGORY  Smith,  Professor  AValteh  Lock,  and  the  Rev.  Ll.  M.  J.  Bebb. 

'  The  most  importaut  book  on  the  credentials  of  Christianitj-  that  has  appeared  in 

this  country  for  a  long;  time.     It  is  a  work  of  extraordinary  learning,  labour,  and 

ability. ' — liritish  Weekly. 

Now  ready,  in  One  Volume,  demy  8vo,  price  98., 

Bible  Studies.     Contributions,  chiefly  from  Papyri  and  Inscriptions, 
to  the  History  of  the  Language,  Literature,  and  Religion  of  Hel- 
lenistic Judaism  and  Primitive   Christianity.      By  Dr.  G.  Adolf 
Deissmann,  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  University  of  Heidelberg. 
Autliorised  Translation  (incorporating  Dr.  Deissmann's  most  recent 
changes  and  additions)  by  Rev.  Alex.  Grieve,  M.A.,  Ph.D. 
Note. — In  addition  to  the  supplementary  matter  specially  contributed  by  the 
Author,  the  translation  shows  considerable  alterations  in  other  respects.     Not  only 
has  the  later  volume,  *  Neue  Bibelstudien,'  found  a  place  in  this  edition,  but  the 
order  of  the  Articles  has,  at  the  Author's  request,  been  completely  changed.     The 
Indexes  have  been  combined,  and  an  Index  of  Scripture  Texts  has  been  added. 
The  English  translation  is  therefore  virtually  a  new  work. 

'  In  every  respect  a  notable  book.  ...  As  to  its  value  there  can  be  no  hesitation 
about  the  verdict.  .  .  .  Words,  syntax,  and  ideas  can  all  be  tested  over  again  by  a 
completely  new  apparatus  of  studj',  the  lexicon  of  the  New  Testament  can  be  enriched, 
the  grannnar  re- written,  and  the  theology  re-vivified  and  humanised.' — Dr.  J.  Rendel 
Harris  in  the  Examiner. 

In  One  larg:e  Volume  8vo,  price  148., 

Justification  and  Reconciliation.  By  Albrecht  Ritschl. 
Edited  by  H.  R.  Mackintosh,  D.Phil.,  and  A.  B.  Macaulay,  M.A. 

'At  last  there  is  provided  what  has  been  a  desideratum  for  years — a  really  reliable 
translation  of  the  great  dogmatic  work  on  "Justification,"  by  which  the  most  noted  of 
modern  theologians  chiefly  made  his  mark  on  the  thinking  of  his  age.' — Critical  Review. 

'  Dr.  Mackintosh  and  his  coadjutors  have  earned  the  gratitude  of  all  theological 
students  in  this  country.  .  .  .  The  present  translation  meets  one  of  the  most  urgent 
wants  of  the  hour.  Now  the  great  systematic  work  of  Kitschl  is  open  to  all.' — Prof. 
J.  Denney,  D.D. 

Second   Edition,  Revised  througrhout,   in  post  8vo,   price  6s., 

The  Miracles  of  Unbelief.  By  Rev.  Frank  Ballard,  M.A., 
J>.8c.,  London. 

'Written  by  an  expert  in  science  as  well  as  theologj*,  a  fair-minded  man  who  faces 
religious  difficulties,  not  ignores  them,  and  one  Avho  knows  how  to  reason  out  his  case 
like  an  accomplished  advocate,  without  pressing  it  like  an  unscrupulous  one.  ^Mr. 
Ballard  has  rendered  valuable  service  to  the  cause  of  Christian  truth,  and  given  us  an 
excellent  and  useful  book,  deserving  a  large  circulation.'— Professor  W.  T.  Davison, 
in  the  Methodist  lieamlcr, 

'  It  is  a  perfect  mine  of  quotation  for  men  with  little  time  for  study,  who  are  called, 
as  modern  ministers  are,  to  hv.  not  oidy  visitors  and  workers  but  also  i)rcachers  and 
teachers.' — Uuanlian. 

Second   Edition,   in   post  8vo,   price  99., 

Is  Christ  Infallible  and  the  Bible  True?  (CHving  the  Teach- 
ing of  Jesus  on  Holy  Scripture,  and  other  Burning  (^^uestions  in  The- 
ology and  Religious  Life.)    By  Rev.  Hugh  M'Intusii,  M.A.,  London. 

'  Such  a  title  is  calculated  to  arrest  attention  and  awaken  interest.  Nor  will  any  one 
who  reads  the  book  find  Ins  attention  allowed  to  Hag  or  his  interest  to  wane,  for  the 
points  discussed  are  in  themselves  most  attractive  and  important,  whilst  tlie  method 
of  treatment  is  both  vigorous  and  vivid.' — Presbyterian. 


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